Sex and Murder Magazine

By Jessica McHugh

Having traveled beyond the borders of what most would consider normalcy, I have beheld sights to shock and disturb those with even the most unshakeable sensibilities. I have witnessed the mortal and immortal rise and fall, I have seen the death of innocence and the innocent alike, and I’ve looked in the eyes of cackling demons and somehow had the courage to smile after. I have come to understand the difference between the spilled milk of man and that of demons, and I have taken more pleasure in spilling it myself than I would care to admit. Fear has hollowed me out, hardened me up, and permanently dried the tears of terror. But all of the things I’ve seen, in all of their mind-shattering horror, were digestible because of the immortal realms in which they transpired. It is the occurrences of this earth that have terrified me the most, and yet, it is those, when ending well, that have the ability to restore a bit of what I've lost. I have been nearly sucked into oblivion countless times, and I have survived each one; at least, in theory. Perhaps that’s why when something like this happens, they call me: because the truth is that I’ve seen it all. I’ve stood at the precipice of the world and watched it collapse and burn from the bottom up and laughed as I stood upon the smoldering rubble.

Basically, I’m a freak. And when something freaky happens, the world needs a freak.

I wasn’t called into the situation immediately. It needed time to build up steam and attention before the “powers that be” would resort to calling me in. After the fourth school in Maryland was reported as having an “incident,” people started to get really nervous and wonder why this epidemic hadn’t been stopped or even diagnosed. I had been following the story very superficially for weeks and when the epidemic started to spread, I began preparing myself for the call. I have to admit that I was slightly offended when the call didn’t come immediately after the four junior high kids were found slaughtered in the same manner as they others across the state, but as I wasn’t too eager to delve into such a gory scene, I didn’t kick up too much fuss. When the phone finally rang, I knew it was about the incidents; not only because I was expecting it or because my visions revealed it but because the woman’s voice on the other end of the line was shaking terribly, probably half in shock from the deaths and half in apprehension of having to deal with “my kind.”

“This is a very serious situation,” she said as if I didn’t already know. “And they say you’re the best when it comes to—these things.”

“I’m not the best. I’m the only.”

“But you are a paranormal investigator?”

“No, I’m not, and I take offense to be referred to as such. I’m not some ghost chasing nutbar, Mrs. Willeck. I’m a preternatural detective.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Would you like to argue semantics or do you want me to find whatever killed these children?”

“Please, you have to find the killer. We’re afraid it might happen again.”

The police had crawled the crime scenes like ants searching for hidden sugar, and despite their surely flawless approaches, they had turned up no fingerprints or evidence that would lead to naming suspects, let alone finding the actual killer. I found this all very interesting. You would think that simple minds would make simple conclusions. Not so. The simpletons started making wild conclusions rather, and in a declaration that alluded to the detectives having seen the movie “Seven” one too many times, it was suggested that perhaps the killer cut or burned the skin off of the tips of his fingers; hence, no fingerprints. My theory was much simpler than that. It’s even simpler than the killer wearing gloves when committing his or her vile crimes. Perhaps the killer didn’t leave fingerprints because it didn’t possess them. Fingerprints are a human trait, and maybe, just maybe, the killer wasn’t human. One of the simpletons must’ve let that theory dance through their head at least once though. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be walking though the horrible 1970s art deco archway of Welton Junior High.

“Seems like a pretty normal school to me,” I commented as Mrs. Willeck led me through the orange halls.

“Oh, it is. We’ve never had anything like this happen before. It’s awful, just awful. Those poor kids,” she sniffled into her handkerchief.

“What kind of kids were they? The papers didn’t say much and some of the parents have refused to see me.”

“Refused to see a detective?”

“I’m used to it,” I replied. “So, the kids?”

“Well, they were loners but always in a group, if you know what I mean.”

“A group of loners, sure.”

“I guess they were part of that gothic crowd. You know, always dressed in black, always brooding over their Twilight books.”

“Their what?”

“They are books. Well, they’re movies too. The kids can’t get enough of it.”

“Books about what?”

“I think vampires mostly. You know how kids are.”

“The four kids that were killed,” I started and Mrs. Willek whimpered into her hand. “Were they the only ones in this vampire-loving group of loners?”

“No, there’s a bunch of them.”

“I’d like to speak to them.”

“Of course. They’d all be on the playground for recess now. I’ll show you.”

She led me outside where the majority of the children looked like happy, healthy pre-teens, bouncing balls and chasing each other playfully. But when I spied a little girl dressed in black sitting on a stump with her nose buried in a book, I waved the Principal away and approached the girl cautiously. She seemed to take no notice of me; even when I stood in front of her, she didn’t look up from her reading.

“It’s not polite to stare,” she finally said.

“Sorry,” I replied as I sat down next to her. “You know, it’s also not polite to ignore people.”

“Sorry,” she said insincerely with a shrug.
“So, what are you reading: that Dusk till Dawn book, or whatever it’s called?”

“It’s called Twilight, and no I’m not. I don’t read those books.”

“Why not?”

“Because my retarded hamster could’ve written them,” she replied. “I prefer the classics.”

“Like Harry Potter?” I joked.

“Like Les Miserables,” she said mockingly as she shook the Victor Hugo novel in front of my face.

“I see.”

“So, are you here to investigate the murders?”

“What makes you think they were murders?”

“It’s more interesting to think they were. Besides, if they weren’t, why would you be here?”

“Maybe I’m just here for my own amusement.”

“You came to a junior high playground for your own amusement? That’s creepier than the murders,” she replied with her lip curled up in disgust.

“Don’t you think you’re kind of young to be reading such a heavy novel?”

“So, just because I’m a kid, I’m not allowed to read anything of worth?” she spat. “Just because I’m a kid, I have to read those piece of crap Twilight books and pretend to be a vampire like those dorks that hang out under the slide?”

“What dorks?”

“The ones that Lila was friends with and those other three kids that got killed. They all hang out under the slide and pretend to be vampires. It’s ridiculous.”

“They’re just kids playing make-believe. What’s so wrong with that?”

“No, they’re not playing; they totally think they are vampires. Except half of them are old-school vampires and the others are those stupid Twilight vampires.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Lots of stuff. Like, you know how vampires aren’t supposed to go out in the sun?”

“Of course.”

“Well, in Twilight, they can. When they’re in the sun, they don’t burn up. They just get sparkly,” she said with a theatrical wave of her fingers.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said flatly.

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“If you’ve never read these books, how do you know so much about them?”

“Because every one of those vamp-dorks does their book reports on them,” she said in exasperation. “If it was Bram Stoker’s Dracula or something, I don’t think I would care so much. At least that’s a story that stands on actual story telling.”

“Wow. Alright. Obsessive, moody, hypercritical. Let me guess: you’re going to be a writer when you grow up,” I said with a smirk, but the little girl in black looked none too amused.

“Look, if you are here because of the murders, you shouldn’t be wasting your time talking to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not one of those dumb vampire kids. I just like wearing black.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it goes with nothing,” she said dramatically.

“That’s deep.”

“Thanks. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my book.”

“Just one more question before I brave the crypt under the slide: these kids that think they’re vampires don’t actually drink blood or anything, do they?”

“You’re asking that because the kids’ bodies were drained, aren’t you?”

“You sure do know a lot about all of this.”

“Standing on the outside of the circle gives you a fair view of the interior.”

“Well put. So do they drink blood?”

“They might. Some of them have hickey-looking bites on their necks sometimes, but I think that’s just all part of the act. I know they carry around tomato juice with “blood” written on the label, and a couple of times, I saw them carrying around red freezie-pops, and they were telling everyone that they just raided a blood bank. Pretty dorky if you ask me.”

“I agree.”

“Although,” she began, almost musically, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the hickey thing themselves. You know, for real. At least, Mark and Sasha.”

“Which ones are they?”

“The two oldest. They’re going together. She was ‘turned’ first and then ‘turned’ him so they could be together for eternity, or some such nonsense. Eternal lovers. I guess I can see the appeal.”

“Aren’t you kids a little young to be thinking about love? Especially eternal love?”

“No,” she replied matter-of-factly as her fingers danced across the pages of her book.

“Thanks, kid. You’ve been really helpful,” I said as I started to walk toward the playground equipment, but the little girl in black called after me.

“You know that’s where they were found, right?”

“Who?”

“The four dead kids. They found them under the slide.”

But even if she hadn't said so, I would have known it as soon as I drew nearer. The playground equipment was a large mass of twisted metal with several boards and poles for one to slide down from the varicolored beast, but there was one slide in particular that drew me in. For one, it was the only one capable of acting as a refuge from sun-fearing or sparkly-skinned pseudo-vamps, and two, I could smell the death wafting from it as clearly as a normal person could smell popcorn cooking from two rooms away. The stench of blood is a thick, almost metallic smell that, once your nose gets a hold of, the back of your tongue does too. I swallowed the disgusting film forming in my mouth and crouched down beside the slide to look underneath. Like something out of a cartoon, as soon as my head ducked under the slide and entered their secret lair, the youngest boy hissed at me through an oversized set of plastic fangs. I was naturally taken aback and instinctively wanted to hold my fingers up in a cross formation and shove it in the kid’s face. In my mind, I did just that.

“I wanted to ask you kids some questions.”

The oldest child, Sasha, was a girl with porcelain skin and raven hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She had the remnants of tomato juice accumulated in the corner of her mouth, and I briefly wondered if that was intentional: a sign that she had just “fed”. She shook her head so wildly that her ponytail smacked her male companions in the face, but they never took their eyes off of me for one second. Although the older girl and youngest boy were very animated in their actions, the oldest boy, Mark, did nothing but stare. His ivory skin looked cold and hard, and his eyes were so blue that they looked almost unreal, as if someone had stolen the glass eyes from a doll and popped them into the kid’s head. His stare was so fixed and his body so still, if it wasn’t for the noticeable pulse in his throat, I would’ve thought him a real vampire.

“Why don’t you come out from under there so we can talk?”

“We’ve already said everything we have to say,” Sasha said.

“Not to me.”

“And who are you?” she asked as she looked me up and down with a look of aversion.

“The one who’s going to stop this from happening again.”

“I thought that’s what the cops were for.”

“Well, I’m the one they call when the cops give up.”

“They wouldn’t give up,” Mark said softly. “They said they would find the person who killed my sister.”

“Your sister was one of the four?” I asked and Mark cowered back into silence.

“Lila was the oldest. She sired everyone in the clan,” Sasha stated matter-of-factly.

“And by sired you mean she made you into vampires?”

“Duh,” the girl said with an irritating head bob, and I realized that if the murdered kids were as annoying as this girl, the murderer should be caught only to be commended.

“Alright then. Walk me through an ordinary day as a vampire. Do you operate alone or do everything with your clan?”

“We’re in separate grades; it would be pretty difficult to do everything together.”

“Point taken.”

“Plus we live in separate houses,” she added.

“Understood,” I growled through a forced smile. “So, what do you eat and drink: blood?”

“We have to. That is the price we pay for immortality,” the youngest boy answered theatrically.

“I was told that Lila and the others were found on school grounds but they were killed after school hours, at night. Do you know what they were doing here?”

“They were siring Toby. He is—was—a fifth grader.”

“And why weren’t you three with them?”

“Mark was,” the girl replied.

“You were there? What happened?”

The boy shook his head and looked down at the ground with his bottom lip poked out so far, it was as if the weight of it was causing him to tilt forward.

“Did you see anything?”

“They already asked him all of this stuff,” the youngest boy said. “He didn’t see anything. He was the lookout. He was out front.”

“So you’re the one that found them?” I asked, and the boy nodded slowly. “But you didn’t see what happened? Nothing? Not even a shadow?”

“I heard a noise,” he whispered. “A growling noise, not like a dog or anything though. I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

“Could it have been another vampire?’ I asked in jest, but they knew I was joking and glared at me icily.

“Don’t make fun,” the girl snapped.

“Believe me, nothing about this is fun,” I grumbled as I stood up, and when my hand slipped over the slide, my mind was assaulted by violent flashes.

When you do what I do, you force yourself to get used to seeing unpleasant things, but I don’t care who you are; no one ever gets used to seeing a child being mutilated. I heard the screams as clearly as I saw the children being yanked out from under the slide. At first, they fought their attacker, but after a few throttles, their bodies went limp. However, the girl Lila was still alive when she was thrown onto the slide like a ragdoll, and as she was dragged down it, her bloody body squealed against the metal. Her hands were raised in pleading surrender; at least, one was. Her left hand was missing entirely, crudely ripped from her wrist. I gritted my teeth as I tried to look past the girl’s eyes, peeled unnaturally wide in fright, but then I was drawn to her trembling lips. Her teeth in her fake fangs were as clenched as my own, and her lips were dyed crimson by the blood bubbling out of her mouth, but beyond the horror of her intense fear, I could discern her lips mouthing the words,

“I’m not a real vampire.”

I could see a vague outline of Lila’s cloaked assailant reflected in her eyes, but just when it drew closer, her eyes snapped shut and the vision abruptly ceased. I staggered backwards with a jolt and nearly tripped over the little girl dressed in black.

“God, they didn’t get to you too, did they?” she groaned with Les Miserables clutched to her chest.

“No,” I replied breathlessly, realizing that the vampire kids had run off. “Where did they go?”

“Who cares?”

“The parents of the dead.”

“Oh,” she whispered and bit her bottom lip.

“I never caught your name.”

“Well, I never threw it out there,” she replied with a snarky smile that crinkled her nose. “It’s Margaret. Meg, actually.”

“Nice to meet you, Margaret Meg Actually,” I said jokingly as I shook her hand. “Look, if you hear anything about those kids meeting up after dark again, give me a call, would you?”

I handed her my card which she hardly looked at before shoving it into her pocket and marching away.

I’d probably never hear from the kid again. Dead end.

There was no doubt in my mind that the killer was otherworldly. Alright, maybe a shred of doubt. Truthfully, I couldn’t make any deductions yet. I hardly knew anything except that whatever had killed those children did so with some of the most unbridled brutality I’d ever seen. Of course, the brutality meter spikes significantly when the victims are children. Annoying, deluded children, maybe, but still children. No matter how much they irritated me or anyone else, it wasn’t near enough to warrant death.

I left once recess was over. There was no point in dragging the kids out of class, and I’d gotten all I could from the hot spot under the slide. It was time to do the part I loathed most: talk to the families of the deceased.

I liked to imagine that my nerves had been hardened by everything I’d seen in my life. I’d faced demons, monsters, I’d even seen a dimension of Hell itself, but my stomach still turned to a quivering mass of jelly when I had to confront the mourners. I’m the first to admit that my bedside manner was lacking, and the fact that I get the flashes at random, frequently unfortunate, times doesn’t help. While I’m holding a dead girl’s ballet slippers, seeing every instance in which she wore them, her mother was staring at me, hanging on her horror and waiting for my eyes to spring back to life. Mrs. O’Reilly’s eyes wouldn’t be doing that though. Lila and Mark’s mother’s eyes looked even blanker than mine when I had my visions. I felt bad when she answered the door and Lurch from The Addams Family sprang to mind, but I couldn’t help that thought any more than she could help looking like Lurch. She didn’t greet me. She didn’t ask me who I was. She simply opened the door and stepped aside to let me in. I could’ve been anyone; I could’ve been the killer, and her expression led me to believe that even if I was there to kill her, she wouldn’t have minded one bit.

“I’d like to ask you some questions, Mrs. O’Reilly. Would that be alright?” I asked as I followed her into the kitchen.

“How come everyone has questions, but no one has any answers?” she replied robotically.

“Hopefully, I’ll be able to give you some, but first—”

“First you need to ask questions, right? Go ahead, I guess.”

“What kind of girl was Lila? What I mean is: was there anybody who might’ve wanted to hurt her?”

“No. She was the sweetest little girl. She was involved in our church, she was a good student, she was a wonderful daughter, and a wonderful big sister to Mark. She was…she was…” Mrs. O’Reilly started and began to sob into her hands.

“About church: did she act strange there? With the holy water and crosses?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mrs. O’Reilly, you are aware that your daughter pretended to be a vampire, aren’t you? You’re son does too.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Well, yes, it is, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Your children act like they’re in a vampire clan with a few other children, including the three others that were killed. Apparently they were inspired by some books. The Twilight series, I believe.”

“Okay, so? You think that just because they were playing make believe, someone wanted to kill them?”

“I don’t think anything of the sort—yet.”

“To answer your question: no, she didn’t act strange at church. She was an angel. My little angel.”

“I understand. May I see her room?” I asked, and she nodded sadly.

As soon as she pushed open the door to Lila’s room, she began to cry again. The light was pouring in through the window, illuminating the room with the heavenly glow of afternoon. It did look like the room of an angel; hardly the inner sanctum for a supposed creature of the night.

“I’m going to keep it like this, just like this,” she said, but I’d heard that grief-induced statement so many times, I’d learned not to respond to the madness.

I never understood the notion of keeping things the way the deceased had had them. If pushing open the door and seeing traces of your dead daughter makes you cry, why would you want to keep it as is unless you’re actually trying to torture yourself into tears. Ah, the absurdity of the human brain. Sometimes the motivations of the preternatural are much easier to understand.

“This is where she did her homework. This is where she combed her hair,” Mrs. O’Reilly whimpered, and after she ran her hand over Lila’s bed, she collapsed down onto it. “This is where she slept.”

“I gathered that, yeah.”

If anyone ever needed to make a pro-sterilization commercial, all they would need to do is film Mrs. O’Reilly’s grief.

“Maybe you should go downstairs. I promise I won’t move anything,” I said and she nodded as she choked on her tears and dragged herself out of the room.

It was obvious that the girl had been living two lives. She dressed like an angel at home and a devil at school, and she’d done an excellent job of keeping them from bleeding into one another. There wasn’t even a stitch of black clothing hanging in her closet. I ran my hand over the pastel apparel and saw a hundred dutiful Sundays in church and hours spent studying in her room. I saw Saturdays helping her mother in the garden and evenings spent playing with her younger brother. They were some of the sweetest visions that had ever graced my mind.

Just as I was thinking I’d hit another dead end, I ran my hand over the doorknob and an incident pummeled my mind. I heard Lila screaming and another girl screaming back, but the only person I could see was Mark, standing in the corner with one hand balled into a fist and the other twisting around the doorknob. He was wearing his plastic fangs and interjecting protests every so often, but he wasn’t loud enough to make any difference in the argument.

“I told you to stay away from here!” Lila screamed. “You’re not right for him. You’re not right for us!”

“And I told you: I don’t care what you think. I only care what Mark thinks, and Mark wants me around. He likes me,” the other girl replied sharply.

“He just thinks he does. He'll get over it, believe me. No one would ever like someone like you.”

“You are such a hypocrite, you lame vampire impersonator!”

“You see, Mark? How can she really like you if she's making fun of our style?”

“Style? Its not a style! It's a joke!”

“You see?” Lila screeched and when she stomped forward, I could finally see her. “Stay away from me, and stay away from my brother or else.”

“Or else what? You'll bite me with your plastic fangs?” the girl scoffed.

“You don't wanna know what I could do. I'll make your life miserable,” she said as she shoved the girl to the floor. “Don't touch her, Mark!” she screamed when he offered his hand to the girl.

“Lila, you're being unfair,” he protested.

“And you're being naïve. She's a disease,” she hissed, and when the girl got back to her feet, I saw her face at last: Meg. Margaret Meg Actually.

“You're the disease, Lila. All of you,” she said as she shrugged Mark away. “You and your pathetic little Twilight pep squad sparkle party. You're nothing but posers. No one would care if you just disappeared.”

“Like you're one to talk. No one even knows you exist!”

“I'd rather be in the shadows than be some yuppy clinging to a fad. And a horrible fad at that.”

“Get out! Just get out of here!” Lila screamed and tried to push her again, but Meg wasn't having it; she grabbed Lila's fingers and twisted them back sharply.

Lila howled in pain and sank to her knees, but her brother sprung to her rescue by grasping Meg's ponytail.

“Let her go, Meg.”

She released Lila and Mark released Meg, and as soon as she was free, she started smacking Mark across the face.

“I'll kill you!” she screamed and stormed out of the room, but before she ran down the stairs, she pointed at the O'Reilly children and growled, “I hope you both die, and I hope I'm there to see it.”

I let go of the doorknob with a jarred gasp. Meg? Could that little girl have done those terrible things? I'd definitely seen more unbelievable things in my life and the girl certainly had the motivation, but she was so young, and surly disposition aside, she seemed like a normal preteen.

Or was she? Maybe she was just dressed like a preteen. Some years ago while I was investigating the murder of a pregnant woman in Colorado, I discovered the murderer to be the shapeshifting, fetus-eating jhinkar demon. It had assumed the form of the woman's ex-husband to enter her home and kill her and her unborn child. However, I'd had a similar situation in San Antonio that ended with both the death of the victim and the murderer; unlike the shapeshifting jhinkar demon, the tilur demon actually possessed a woman's body, used it to kill her children, and when it fled, it killed her as well. Maybe that's what I was dealing with here. Maybe Meg was a demon in moody preteen garb.

I got Meg's address from Principal Willeck and headed to the house on Double Tree Lane just as the sun's descent began to leave its light pink kiss upon the sky.

“May I speak with your daughter please?” I asked the pale gentleman with the bold mustache who answered the door.

“Are you a detective?”

“Yes.”

“But you're not with the police, are you?”

“Why would you think that?”

“They haven't been saying 'please' lately,” he replied.

“So the police have already been here.”

“They thought Meg might be next, that the killer was targeting kids that were into these vampire books.”

“If that's the case, your daughter will be just fine. She's made it perfectly clear how much she loathes those books,” I replied and murmured, “and anyone who reads them.”

“She's not here. She likes to hang out in the woods before dinner.”

“Alone? With a killer on the loose?”

“We tried to keep her from going, but she wouldn't listen. She's headstrong, that one. Besides, I thought you said she wasn't in any danger.”

“Of being murdered by whoever killed the other children, no, but she is at risk.”

“I don't understand.”

“Just tell me where she is.”

“In the woods just down the street,” he replied and as I started towards the thick cluster of trees, Meg's father shouted, “Tell her dinner is almost ready!”

To which I shouted back, “No!”

As soon as I penetrated the thicket, I began to hear voices, which disconcerted me because I understood the girl to be alone. I drew closer and could discern that there were two distinct voices, one female and one male. I had a pretty good idea who they belonged to, but I did not expect what I saw when I finally came upon them. Meg had a large butcher knife raised above her head, poised to plunge it into the chest of the crying boy standing opposite her: Mark O'Reilly.

“Stop! Don't do it!” I screamed as I pushed through the bushes and tumbled out into the clearing.

“It's that ghost detective. What are you doing here?” Meg asked.

“I'm a preternatural detective actually, and for the record, I've never seen a single ghost in my life. But that's beside the point. Now, put down the knife and step away from him, Meg.”

“I'm not going to hurt him.”

“So you're just planning on giving him a haircut then?”

She groaned and dropped the knife while I pulled Mark away from her.

“Are you okay?” I asked and he looked at me in uneasy confusion. “Are you hurt? Why are you crying?”

He wiped away his tears with a defiant grunt and backed away from me.

“Why do you think he's crying? His sister was just murdered,” Meg said as she wrapped her arm around him.

“So what's with the knife?”

“We're going to kill him,” Mark creaked.

“Him?”

“Him, her, whoever killed my sister.”

“And you're helping him?”

“Of course I am,” Meg replied. “Just because the rest of them are jerks doesn't mean Mark is.”

“But I thought you said he was dating that other girl.”

“I thought he was. It turns out he still liked me after all,” she said, and her pale face flushed with joy.

I still wasn't convinced. Even though every vibe I was getting from the girl was sincere and more importantly, human, demons are a tricky sort. They can be incredibly smart or incredibly stupid, and either way, incredibly dangerous.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

“What was your plan for killing the killer?”

“Mark would be the bait. Whoever the killer is, he seems to like the vampire kids, and once he's lured out, slash!” she replied and sliced through the air with an invisible blade.

The action was amusingly childish and decidedly, human. Even the smartest demons can't replicate the innocent daring of a child.

“You know I can't let you do that. It's too dangerous.”

“It's better than waiting around to get killed,” Mark said and popped the plastic fangs into his mouth. “We're doing this with or without your help, but it'll be safer if you help us.”

He was right, but even if he wasn't, my curiosity shoved me in the direction of surrender.

“We're going to the playground to wait and hope he comes back. You can watch from a distance and make sure he doesn't hurt us. Just make sure you get a good look before you chase him away.”

The way children think fascinates me. They just assumed that because I'm an adult, I could scare off whatever wanted to hurt them. Sure, I could do my best, but while they felt more secure with me around, I had a feeling that none of us were safe.

Once the world was dark, Meg, Mark, and I arrived at the junior high playground. My satchel was filled with all sorts of weaponry, including some that those unversed in demonology might not consider weapons. The kids made their way to the slide and I hung back, loading silver bullets into my gun with shaking hands. Before Meg left Mark under the slide, she kissed him. It was sweet, really, and as she backed away from him with the butcher knife clenched in her tiny hands, I prayed that the kiss wouldn't be their last. Mark cracked open a tomato juice and sighed loudly as rivers of red dripped down his chin. In the darkness, illuminated only by a full moon, the kid with porcelain skin and crimson fangs looked like a baby demon.

We waited. The hours passed slowly and boredom stole our energy, but we waited. After two hours, I'd contemplated calling it quits several times, but it wasn't until the fourth hour struck that I decided it was time to take the kids home. I stood to call Meg over, but her eyes were firmly fixed on Mark. Her eyes were the only part of her I could see, flashing in the moonlight, but when she moved slightly, I realized that I wasn't looking at Meg at all. Something was standing behind her, looming over her as she was crouched under a bush on the outskirts of the playground.

I bolted toward the shadowy figure with my pistol preceding and Meg stared at me in confusion. As I neared, the attacker's face became more distinct, and there was no longer any doubt that it was of demon ilk. It remained frozen to its spot, hissing repeatedly, and when I flew past Meg and tackled the creature, she ran and huddled next to Mark under the slide. As I sat atop the creature with the barrel of my gun pressed into its throat, it did not seem afraid, and it didn't try to shake me. It had large, ice blue eyes widely set on its enormous bald head, and its skin was so pale, I could see black veins webbed beneath it.

“What are you?” I demanded as I pressed the gun harder into its throat.

It opened its mouth, which was nearly twice the size of mine, and within the cavernous opening were only two daggers of teeth.

“A vampire?” I gasped.

“You may call me so, but I prefer the name ‘strigoi,’” it replied in an almost musical Romanian accent.

“So you're the one killing the children. For what: impersonating you?”

“No, it’s not me. It's not the work of any strigoi. I came to protect the children.”

“Bullshit! Why should I believe you?”

“Because the monster that killed those children has also been killing my kind. We're what it feeds on.”

“What monster?” I asked, and the strigoi's eyes shifted from my face to looking over my shoulder.

“The one sneaking up on your young friends right now,” it replied.

I turned to see Meg and Mark staring at me, unaware of the menacing beast slithering towards them. It was cloaked in darkness as if it had stolen every nearby shadow and draped it over its head. Its eyes were lidless and without pigmentation, and when it reached out for the children, I saw that its hands were no more than large, razor-sharp pincers.

“Run!” I screamed, and when Meg and Mark took off in different directions, I groaned for the stupidity in their panic and fired my gun at the monster.

“You cannot kill a bridlam with bullets,” the strigoi said.

“They're silver.”

“You can't kill a bridlam with silver bullets either.”

“What is it?”

“It feeds on the blood of the blood drinker. It is our only predator.”

“But you're obviously not its only prey.”

“Yes we are. The only blood it can digest is that which has been processed by our unique bodies.”

“How can you say that when it’s been killing human children for months?”

“The bridlam are almost completely blind. They see a pale creature out a night, and they stalk. They see fangs, and they strike.”

A scream turned me away from the strigoi and I saw the grotesque bridlam with Mark in its pincers.

“Tell him not to struggle or its claws will snap him in half.”

“Mark, freeze! Don't move!”

He wailed in reply, too frightened to adhere to my orders.

“Help him, please,” Meg begged as she ran up, but when she took one look at the strigoi and started to bolt, the vampire grabbed her collar and yanked her back.

“Calm down or your boyfriend is going to die,” it said forcefully. “Now tell him to stop struggling.”

“Mark, please don't move!” she yelled and he immediately stopped fighting against the bridlam's grasp.

“Good. Now tell him to spit out those stupid fangs.”

“Spit out the fangs, Mark!”

He nodded and with sloppy force, he spat the plastic teeth at the bridlam's face. The beast howled and dropped the boy who landed with a cracking thud onto the ground. He rolled around on the grass, holding his arm and sobbing in pain. The bridlam growled in ravenous anger as it got very close to Mark, scrutinizing over his changed appearance. It opened its mouth wide and just when I thought it was going to chomp his head off anyway, a stream of frothy blood and bile erupted from its throat and drenched Mark in steaming scarlet liquid. At that point, it would've been difficult for Mark to imagine something worse than having a demon regurgitate on him, but it got much worse when a solid chunk was plucked from the bridlam's stomach and slapped the boy across the face. His shrieks at seeing his sister's half-digested hand sitting in his lap were almost too much to bear. Meg covered her ears and closed her eyes, but when I saw the bridlam suddenly look in our direction, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her away. It briefly followed our flight and then snapped back to the strigoi. It hissed as the strigoi snarled, and as they began circling each other, Meg and I pulled Mark out of the congealing puddle. He was sniveling uncontrollably, and he seemed unable to tear his eyes away from Lila's hand half sunk in the crimson mire.

“Hey, look at me,” I said as I forced him to face me. “Do you see now? Do you understand? You should just be yourself.”

“That's the part I always liked,” Meg said as she wiped the sinew from his face with her sleeve.

The bridlam lunged at the strigoi and within the cacophony of the violent struggle, it was impossible to tell which one would prevail. With my hands on their backs, I turned Meg and Mark away from the bloody sight that would likely remain with them for the rest of their lives. We were silent as we walked out of the playground, perhaps lost in our own accounts of what had just happened. Then, Meg cleared her throat and grasped Mark's hand.

“Still wanna read those books?” she asked, and Mark scoffed.

“I never liked them all that much anyway. I never even liked dressing as a vampire all that much. I guess I just wanted to...well, I wanted Lila to think...”

“I know. I understand.”

Watching this exchange was one of the most extraordinary things I'd ever witnessed, and I've seen a real angel before. Meg reached into her pocket and pulled out the plastic vampire teeth, speckled with blood, she had snatched from the ground.

“No, really. I don't want them. I'm done with that.”

“But Mark—”

“I mean it. I'm done with Twilight. I don't even know what I was thinking. Why would a vampire go to school? And what kind of sicko watches a seventeen year old girl while she sleeps? Isn't he supposed to be over a hundred years old?”

“Mark, shut up,” she snapped as she grabbed his hand and slapped the fangs onto his palm. “They were your sister's. Lila bought them for you, didn't she?”

“Yeah, she did. I forgot.”

“I didn't,” Meg said, and when he squeezed her hand, the blood in his fist made a squelchy noise, but they didn't seem to notice.

My work was done. After all, they'd only called me in to uncover the killer; not to destroy it. I was thankful for the police's negligence in assigning me that duty. No demon goes without a fight or a nasty mess left behind, and after the pleasantry of the children's budding romance, I was in no mood for more bloodshed. I left my report with the police, and although I'm certain they saw no merit in my investigation or its findings, I was alright leaving them to sort it out themselves. There was a killer in Welton, probably several, but the police wouldn't catch them. And there was no way to prevent the killings from happening again. It was no one's fault. The bridlam was just hungry. The kids were just impressionable.

By the time I boarded the train out of town, I knew I'd be getting the call for my new assignment soon, and I knew it was going to be a doozy. It didn't worry me though. With Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings singing over the speakers, I couldn't focus on anything but their song. I hummed along, but when I reached the chorus, my mind tweaked the words and the alteration made me smile too much to dread anything. As the train made short work of leaving Welton far behind, I sang my new version. Although it made several of my fellow passengers look at me in puzzlement, it didn't bother me in the slightest.

“Mamas,” I crooned ardently, “don't let your babies grow up to be vampires.”