Scraping and clanging from the store wakes me. My back aches from the rigid cot, but anything beats the Toyota. Sleeping in the car is reserved for desperate nights. Nights when I am too ashamed to return to my room in the store. Fragments of lingering nightmares are replaced by thoughts of yesterday’s news: the lunatic cutting people’s throats. I launch out of bed. The cot creaks and quivers. I gather my clothes and dress, slipping my razor blade into my back pocket like I always do.

In the store I find Gus dragging a crate of beer across the wooden floor. The glass bottles clank with each tug.

“Woah, woah. Let me get that,” I say, edging him out of the way. I lift the heavy crate and place it by the cooler where I begin unloading it.

“Show off,” Gus grunts.

I smirk.

“You’re not on the clock for another couple of hours. Don’t waste your morning on me.”

“It’s no problem,” I reply. Since the last hunt my body has been given a new strength and energy. The invigoration is like a drug though. In a couple of months, it will wear off. After that, I’ll be right back to weak, sick, dying Billie. In the meantime, I’ll sustain myself by eating food, preferably rare meat. It seems to have a similar effect. Lately, anything else makes me throw up. If Darlene and Gus have noticed my abstinence of vegetables, they haven’t said anything.

I load the last beer into the cooler. “Anything else I can do for you, old man?”

“What did I just tell you, boy. Get outta here and enjoy your morning. Maybe head over to the house and have a coffee with my beautiful wife.”

“I might just do that,” I say as I snag the morning newspaper from the rack by the register. “I’ll see you later, Gus.”

###

The newspaper is hot in my clenched hand. I make the five-minute walk to my car nestled in the trees behind Gus’s property before unfolding the paper. Murder in a Sleepy Town is printed on the front page in bold accusing text. My jaw clenches as I skim the article:

The hour was late when Bartlett resident, Michael Tremont, began his nightly walk. Little did he know this harmless ritual would end in devastation. On May 25th, police discovered Michael’s body after an eight-hour search in the forest surrounding Bliss Street Terrace, only two miles from the victim’s home.

“The body wasn’t hard to spot. The assailant did little to conceal it and the victim had been wearing a bright yellow jacket,” explained Arthur Crispen, town sheriff.

Police believe Michael’s murder is linked to at least three other homicides spanning the Bartlett and North Conway area. “Attacks have happened at night. All victims have been male, between the ages of twenty-five and forty-nine. We are still looking for a connection between these young men.” Crispen refused to comment further, ensuring the public will be made aware as new developments unfold. Law enforcement is cautioning residents to limit time outside after dark.

Residents are horrified by these recent murders and are all asking the same question: how does something like this happen in a sleepy town?

I crumble the paper into a tight ball before whipping it at the ground. The article’s question enrages me, sending my heart into a hectic rhythm, igniting the Other inside. Are the residents of this town really that naive?

These small towns are all the same. I’ve blown through a handful of them, leaving just before they figure it out. In the beginning, I went out of my way to cover up the murders, which is difficult to do when you puncture someone’s throat. Lucky for me, small town law enforcement aren’t used to dealing with violent crime. They barely know a moving violation form a parking ticket. They readily accepted my decoys: a rash suicide, a rare hunting incident, a freak fishing accident. They believed only what they wanted to believe. What I made them believe.

That’s why I drift in and out of these types of places. The people here think they can leave their keys in their ignitions, their doors unlocked at night, their windows cracked to let in the cool breeze. They don’t worry about the consequences. They don’t realize they are tempting me. They don’t understand that I need to feed on them. I don’t want to do it. God, I don’t. But I need to take their lives to save my own. It’s what the Other demands.

These things happen in a sleepy town because everyone is asleep. Nobody is paying attention until it’s too late. Until I’ve already come.

“Wake up,” I scream into the woods. “Wake up!”

Next Chapter: Chapter 5