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As he walked to check the mailbox, his incisors ached from disuse. He ran his tongue over the tip of each one, their points had dulled from eating the apple pie his neighbor had brought him. As he reached his mailbox, he saw Fred watering his azaleas. John thought he was obnoxiously proud of them, although they were nice. He raised his hand in an awkward wave; as much as he disliked Fred, his azaleas, and his overcooked apple pie, he felt obligated to be nice to the man across the hedge. As he thought about Fred's overcooked apple pie, he realized he was still staring into the pools of indigo that rested beneath his eyebrows. He quickly turned and hurried up to his own front porch, not even glancing at his own azaleas, to avoid the opia across the hedge. Fred's chilling, opaque, yet jovial gaze penetrated John's dark exterior, making him think, for a second, that his true nature had been revealed. The deep blue shined from across his yard, and even as he ducked into his house, he was drawn to glance back at the swirling indigo. As he sat on his sofa to read his mail, he realized that he hadn't invited anyone to his house since he'd moved into the track home. When he'd first moved in, nearly ten weeks ago, he'd bought heavy drapes, a wrought-iron bistro table, and a single matching chair. Later, after Fred had insisted on inviting John over for coffee, he noticed how nicely furnished the man's house was, making him go out and buy a sofa the next day. As he flipped through his mail, he realized that he's the only person who has sat on the sofa, which eliminated the purpose of the piece of furniture. He was glad the brown leather hadn't been damaged by the obnoxious, gleaming impediment that hung over their neighborhood. His skin had tanned slightly, giving it a slight pink tone, like an industrially farmed raw chicken. He had almost finished his article about factory farming in E when a knock at his door nearly tossed him from his chair. As he walked to the door, he realized that all of his lights were off, he could easily pretend he wasn't home, or that he had gone to bed. He opened the door to see Fred, who's smile terrified John to his very soul.

?Hello?

?How'd you like the pie?? asked Fred expectantly. His eyes bulged out of his head with anticipation, which John realized he was fixating on, so he looked away.

?It was a nice gesture,? John responded, ?this neighborhood is just so welcoming, I feel like I've found a real-?

?Yeah, it's a really friendly neighborhood, but what'd you think of the pie??

John cleared his throat, ?I liked it.?

?Glad to hear it! Some people say I overcook my pies, but I just don't like them to be soggy. You and I know that they're best a little darker than most people bake them?

Realizing he had just made a permanent, irreversible bond with this man, he replied, ?people,? he paused, ?are dumb.?

Fred chuckled, and John didn't quite remember how the conversation went on; he was, again, lost in Fred's captivatingly empty eyes. The rays of indigo shifted in the light, pointing to the pupil. The dark center of the eye he first regarded as simple emptiness in the center of a sea of beautiful indigo, which he now saw was a gateway. The mysterious void drew him in, and he felt compelled toward it. Of course, he had felt compelled into the dark before, he was a vampire after all. But this felt different, it wasn't just darkness. The abyss he saw in front of him was shrouded in such an enchantingly warm shade of indigo, he took a step forward, almost knocking Fred off of his porch.

?Hey, watch it buddy!? Fred said with a chuckle.

?Sorry I must've tripped,? he said, trying to avoid Fred's gaze, ?Well, I should be going??

?Oh, of course I'll let you get back?? Fred trailed off as John turned back into his house.

 

As time went on, John brought more furniture into the house, including a bed he slowly became accustomed to using He started folding down the collars on his shirts and stopped shaving every day. By that winter, he had stopped using gel in his hair, and had grown a rather thick beard. On December 12th, he received a card from his cousin.

?Since you left, James and Moraine are acting like they're in mourning. If you come for Night of the Immortal Stars, it might help them lighten up. It's on the 22^nd this year, in Pittsburg.?

His parents had always been dramatic, and he had always assumed it was just because they were vampires. Although, as he got to know his Aunt Gertie & Uncle Rupert, he noticed how easygoing they were, sure they stayed inside their stone house during the day, but they didn't hiss in the light the way his parents always did. His father was worse than his mother, he wouldn't leave the house until nine o'clock, even in the dead of winter.

While he was staying with his aunt & uncle in Meadville, he realized that some vampires could live normal lives, but he always wondered about breaking the barrier even they hadn't. He always knew, logically, that someone would have come to Pennsylvania from Transylvania, but his parents always insisted that no vampires could travel outside of their ?birth-sylvania'. When he packed up his belongings and said he was moving to a suburb of Cleveland, his parents thought he was joking. As a child, he'd said at some point he was going to leave Oil City, of course at that point, he said he'd move to California. As time passed, his dream got smaller, but Cleveland was plenty outlandish to his parents. After packing his car, he hugged both his parents goodbye, and left their gothic castle behind.

?So, we'll see you for dinner,? James had said jokingly, ?don't be late, we're making Bloody Mary's later.?

When he'd moved to Cleveland, he thought drinking a Bloody Mary at the bar down the street would make him feel closer to his parents, but it just didn't taste the same. He thought about drinking that Bloody Mary, alone at Maggie's Bar, as he read the letter again. He thought about seeing his parents again.

?They'd mock my fangs,? he said aloud to the darkness around him. Their rounded points would disappoint them, and surely, they'd use it as evidence that he had made a mistake. They were undeniable proof he hadn't fed in months. He imagined how he'd feel when they dragged him to their castle, feeding him and taking care of him. The mix of humiliating comfort he felt just imagining sitting in their kitchen, eating blood pudding, feeling like a child again terrified him. He wasn't a child, and he had to remember that, so he set the letter on the table, and went to bed.

He didn't remember his dream, but he knew his cousin was in it. Now, he stood in the doorway of his garage, which housed his casket, since he didn't own a car. He still felt drawn to it, had thought about climbing back in for months, but he had always stopped himself. He repeated, ?someone could see through the window,? although the only window was five feet off the ground and covered by a maple tree in his yard. The truth he couldn't say aloud, was that his urge to climb into the casket now felt grotesque, malicious, foul. He hated that he had developed a distaste for his own innate desires. Logically, he knew that it was because he was surrounded by suburbanites, who were undoubtedly all anti-vampire.

If, when Fred waved to him across the hedge, he had replied, ?I've been drinking human blood since I stopped breastfeeding,? he probably would have been met with a negative result.

He felt as if this deep hatred for his own cravings was rooted within him, as if it was growing from inside him, as if he was just now realizing that he'd been doing something so disgusting his whole life without realizing it. In this moment, he thought of Fred's gorgeous indigo eyes to calm him, but he could only focus on the emptiness of his pupil. Before he realized what he was doing, he lifted a baseball bat he'd found when he moved in, and smashed it in the lid of the casket. As he destroyed his intricate, hand-carved casket with the bat, he felt as if he free from his history. The corpse of the vampire named John lie in that casket, and he felt completely liberated.

Before the sun rose that morning, he strolled outside to retrieve his morning paper. He usually waited until sunset to venture outside, because even in the early morning he knew the sun was coming. Today, he couldn't wait to escape his manicured prison. He watered his azaleas, daffodils, and his pair of maple trees for about an hour and sat outside and enjoyed a homemade Bloody Mary. His eye was trained on a sparrow as he enjoyed his early morning cocktail. He had used the last of the blood he'd brought from home for the Bloody Mary He decided not to focus on that this morning: the morning of rebirth

December 21^st came and left, and the days following the celebration in Pittsburg were the worst of John's life. On the 23^rd, he lay on the floor in the empty room down the hall from his bedroom. When he saw the house for the first time, the realtor had called it the office. He wondered what he'd ever need an office for, but he liked the narrow windows and the absence of a light. Today, he writhed on the floor in starved agony. His throat was dry and felt as if it were closing in on him from all sides. It had been four days since the morning of rebirth, and he had been ignoring his cravings. He convinced himself that he was a man now, and that he had made his final Bloody Mary. As he tried to stand, he yelled out in agony, and fell against the wall. He turned his head and peered past the heavy curtain covering the slim window, and saw Fred walking up to his front porch. John threw himself across the room, intending to lock the door for Fred's protection. As he fell through the doorway, part of him still believed he was a man, and that he had left his former life behind. As he stumbled through his kitchen, he threw a fork off the counter, and fell to pick it up off the floor. He pulled himself up on the door handle, turned the deadbolt, and pulled the door open.

Fred became the first person to sit on his sofa that day. He was somehow convinced that John had twisted his ankle as he flailed his weak, limp body into an armchair. As he felt for the fork in his pocket, he looked back into the indigo clouds resting on the sofa across from him. They floated into John's whole body, and he began to find his strength. His focus began to drift from the calming indigo latent clouds across from him, into the darkness, the vacuum at their centers, until he suddenly became interested in his conversation with Fred.

?-bloody noses all the time. My wife thought we should take him back to Dr. Reinhardt, but I think it's normal for some kids to get bloody noses, don't you??

?Yes,? John responded, in a trance thinking about Fred and his wife cleaning up the blood from their son's nose.

?I mean, the doc said to call if they lasted more than fifteen minutes, and none have. We just didn't expect a nosebleed every-? Fred was cut off by John hurling the fork at his head.

John leapt over his mahogany coffee table and fed on John's fresh blood, gorging himself until he became sick. Once he was thinking clearly, he bandaged Fred's head, and ran. He ran to the top of the street, and down to past Maggie's Bar. He ran out of Warson Hills, into downtown Cleveland. He bought a train ticket, and headed East. As he crossed into Pennsylvania, he felt the humiliating comfort he feared, but he felt something different, too. He felt free, in a way he hadn't felt before. He realized he couldn't be free from himself. He was a vampire, and he realized that there was no escaping himself. The security he felt in his own pale skin as he rode back to Oil City put him at ease as he stared out the window and watched the Pennsylvanian forest pass him by.

 

George paused with the empty cardboard box in his hands, gazing out the window as the pale light of the moon washing over the friendly peaks of a typical suburban neighborhood. Even at this late hour, a few cars zoomed by as their drivers buzzed off to a midnight activity, probably a job if he had to guess, or something much more deceitful. 

 

It seemed like a lifetime ago that he had needed to slink forth from the shadows, stalking his victims into submission in lonely dark alleys, striking fear into the hearts of man and woman alike with his very presence on a mist filled night, and oh how they screamed at the sight of his beautiful white fangs dripping with fresh crimson blood. It was a sound that set his very blood aflame with a hunger so deep that he ached to the depths of his very bones to hear it once more.

 

Sadly, that was rarely the case nowadays. 

 

 Somehow through the years, the humans had become so much harder to hunt, his evening meal becoming more scarce that even a skilled elder vampire such as he had been forced to rely on the abundance of wild animals to slake the powerful thirst that had driven him to the brink of insanity. When had humans become so suspicious of their fellow man? Had no longer heeded his cooed phrases of flattery and eagerly followed him to the darkest depths of a building for his needs? Not even if he invoked his powerful vampiric skills of hypnosis would even guarantee him his prey. At the first sign of his intended victim becoming slightly dizzy and their speech would slur, some unknown person would fly into existence and accuse him of trying to ?date-rape' a person. A term that still confused him to this day.

 

Yes, humans were indeed a mysterious puzzle, one that still confused him to this day despite his nearly 1,000 years of age.

 

But with that confusion led to a new beginning. No longer would he need to linger in darkened estates, wearing titles of long dead victims and changing his name with every beat of his non-beating heart in the hopes that no human would recognize that he did not age, could not be wounded except by silver and wood straight through his heart. Yes, he still had to be extremely wary as to who might catch him slumbering in his coffin through the scorching daylight hours, but now it wasn't so strange if someone did not see him out during the day. His departures at night now not quite so strange as they had once been frowned upon, that in itself was freeing.

 

And now he could own places like this, the newest branch in a sprawling neighborhood that was both quiet and calm enough that the parents allowed their children to play in the streets. The kind of place where neighbors watched out for neighbors, greeting each other with a smile and a nod as they passed on about their daily walks of life 

 

It was a beautiful place, brimming full with a life of it's own and pulsing with the thick rich crimson that also sustained his immortal life as well. Vampires were nothing more than a fairy tale, one that a mother might read to her child before bed, and who would ever expect an ancient predator of the night such as he to settle right in the heart of their own little neighborhood.

 

Vampires certainly weren't real after all, so who wouldn't look the other way when Mrs. Johnson was suddenly struck with anemia after a vigorous bout of exercise? Or when Mr. Fitzgerald disappeared after a night of drinking just a tad too much? Sometimes it was nothing more than the paperboy encountering a little accident on his early morning rounds before the sun had even stretched one peach colored ray into the velvet blue sky. If one had noticed the ever so precise placement of the two little pierce marks over an artery, one might suspect a more vampiric type of aggressor committing such crimes.  

 

But for now he was content, living the content life of a happy widowed grandfather by the name of George Smith. A man, balding and round, chubby cheeks always crinkled up in a smile and a wave of his hand directed to his neighbors in passing. No one would ever comment on his odd hours of leaving in the dark of the night only to return at the first sign of dawn. He was just an old man, friendly to all and a great entertainer at the memorial day barbeque with his tall tales of days gone past. No one would look to see that his perfectly white teeth were not dentures as one would normally have at his age, and that his canines were just a tad too pointed than most peoples. No one ever asked him about the mysterious diet he claimed to be on, the one that restricted food anytime someone was in his presence. 

 

No one suspected a living, breathing vampire was in their midst, and that was just how he liked it.

 

 ?Isn't it wonderful how humans can be so blind?? He asked to the air, turning away from the window to place the box aside and flip open the top flap. A young woman rested inside, her knees folded up to her chest and her hands held behind her shoulders with a thick round of silver duct tape. Her long blonde hair was still styled in the neat little bun she had slipped it in the previous evening, and her dark suit was still neatly pressed and wrinkle free. In fact, the only thing missing was the pair of wooden heeled stilettos that had decorated her feet Those had been the very first items to go. ?A to-go meal, my favorite.? A thick pink tongue slapped against the elongated incisors dangling between his thin lips as he wound his arms around the woman and lifted her from the box.

 

Not even a squeak of protest passed her lips as George situated her on his lap, and now none ever would. Her glassy eyes, hypnotized to the fullest extent of his power, only emptily gazing into the beyond as he buried his fangs in her neck and sucked every drop of blood from her veins.

 

After all, vampires did not exist and they certainly didn't live in quiet neighborhoods like this.