The first person from the list she killed was a woman in her forties. Claudia had never seen anyone in so much pain, with so much suffering around her. Daily she begged to die. Daily.
As Claudia took her, she said, “Thank you.”
There was no loss of memory as Claudia drank. Her parents remained clear.
Ken brought her updated versions of the list when she asked for them, never questioning what she wanted them for. Just her attention was enough. Their friendship grew even when he realized there was something up with her. He accepted it completely. They saw each other through life’s events, though more so for Ken than for her. She helped him to find Sonia, and to keep her. She had never met Sonia. It was best that way. But without Claudia, Ken would never have had the confidence to make a family life. He saw her through dozens of boyfriends, mostly vampires, and disapproved of them all.
At first when she and Ken were seen together, people mistook them for brother and sister. Then father and daughter. These days it was more like grandfather and granddaughter.
He had moved beyond the morgue to other jobs, but she had learned much in her eighty years and could hack into the computers for her lists whenever she needed to.
With the thought of Joel a dull ache and Ken very much on her mind, Claudia walked down to the seawall, enjoying the wind on her face and the smell of the salt. Joel said she didn’t really feel anything except for hunger, the sensation only a memory of what was. “You have a very good memory,” he said as an insult.
The seawall was high and the drop on the other side long. Teenagers would tightrope the wall, and even though it was as thick as a footpath, they teetered nervously.
Claudia walked slowly in the early-evening light. She liked this time, when there was enough natural light to see by. She liked the night falling, darkness growing. Liked the way it made her focus.
She sat on the wall, her feet dangling over. Pulling out her notebook, she checked her timetable. Joel didn’t know about this; none of them did. They already thought she was boring. Imagine what they’d think if they knew she had a list of future food sources, with their usual movements, phone numbers, all of it. She didn’t need notes to find her meal tonight, though. She knew where he’d be. Her notes were a simple comfort, this time, giving her a sense of control.
Darkness came down, and it seemed half the streetlights didn’t work. Sea spray meant the air was misty.
Up ahead, she saw someone on the wall, arms spread. There was no audience, so not a teenager showing bravado. She walked closer, saw it was Ken, his face wet.
He did not hear her approach. Tears. He was crying, passionately, as if he were emptying himself out.
“Ken?” she said. She’d been tracking him without his knowledge for six weeks now, knew his movements. After all these years of friendship, this was an odd intimacy. Watching this old man when he thought he was alone revealed nothing she didn’t know, though. He was a good, kind man who picked his nose.
Every morning he would leave the house and go to sit by the seawall, tempting himself until evening drew him home.
Looking at him, she thought, He’s almost the same age as I am. He remembers what I remember. The music, the movies. But he got old and I didn’t. Moments like that made her glad to be a vampire. She was glad to be living young in the twenty-first century, to have enjoyed the changes in the world as a young person.
“Ken,” she said again.
He turned to her voice. “Do you think I’d die if I jumped or just hurt myself?”
She climbed onto the wall, holding on tight to the edge. Looked over. “You’d hurt yourself. I guess you’d drown if you kept your face down.”
He sat slumped beside her. He had an odd smell, something not quite right.
It wasn’t a dead smell, not yet.
Ken, still balanced on the seawall, bent forward. “Am I on your list now?”
“Do you want me to call Sonia? The kids?” Claudia said. She knew what his answer would be.
“That wouldn’t do any good. She’d only come get me.”
Claudia squinted at him. “You don’t want her to?”
“No. No, I don’t. I don’t want her to see me again. It’s too hard for her.”
His voice was strained, and Claudia realized he was in great pain. “Are you. all right?” He tilted his head and looked at her properly. “You’ve always been kind.”
“My mum was kind. I guess it rubbed off.”
“Never lose that,” Ken said. “I wish I’d been kinder to everyone. Friends and strangers.”
Claudia didn’t say “It’s never too late,” because she could hear that it was.
“What’s wrong with you?” she said, vampire direct. She knew this answer as well, but he needed to say it. It was part of the process.
“Sick. Very sick. Pain ahead and long-drawn-out suffering for my kids. No kid should see a parent suffer. You shouldn’t have to see it.”
“What about the hospital? Can’t they help?”
“With the pain. But what’s the point? I want to pass quietly, peacefully, in control. Why can’t I have that?”
Claudia watched him for a while, then gazed out to sea. “Have you said good-bye to everyone? Tied it all up? Dying with a loose end is no good.”
He looked surprised. “Thanks. For listening, not trying to convince me.” His voice was tight, so full of pain Claudia could almost feel it. “I’ve tied it all up. I say good-bye, I love you, every day just in case. I’ve left special gifts for the grandchildren and messages for the great-grandchildren. I’ve apologized to people. It’s sorted. But I just can’t. ” He stopped, bent over, clutching his ears. “I’m too gutless to do what I need to do.”
Claudia felt her teeth tingle. “I can help,” she whispered. She snarled gently, then said it louder. “I can help.”
He turned, saw her teeth.
“The list? This is what you use the list for?”
She nodded. “I’ll be gentle,” she said, and she bent forward and drank deeply from the beautiful, pulsing vein in his neck. Drank till she was done, till he was; then she sat him on the ground, propped against the wall, and called an ambulance. She didn’t want him robbed, or his body stolen or damaged. His wife and kids needed to know quickly, to see him while he still looked close to life.
She watched from across the street until the ambulance arrived; then she walked home, feeling satisfied in her stomach and in the heart all the others assured her she didn’t have.
Best Friends Forever
by CECIL CASTELLUCCI
They both smiled at each other, the way that best friends do.
Their smiles revealed different things. Gina’s teeth were gray and almost translucent. They looked soft and loose. Amy’s teeth gleamed bright and white even in the dimly lit room. And of course there were the canines. Long and pointy. Hollow at the tip, perfectly made for the sucking of blood.
“Would you?” Gina asked.
“Would you?” Amy asked back.
The first time Amy and Gina met was two years prior. At night school.
Amy had gone there to feed. Gina was there to get her equivalency diploma.
Amy thought she could get her feed on easily in the tunnel that linked the parking garage to the campus. Gina was the perfect prey. She was walking, oblivious to everything around her. She was listening to music much too loudly on her iPod, the sound turned up all the way spilling over and echoing thinly in the tunnel. And she was singing along. Off-key.
Even the loud clicking of Amy’s go-go boots didn’t make Gina notice that there was someone else in the tunnel with her.
Best kind of kill, Amy thought. Easy and there’s no taste of fear in the blood. That’s the sweetest.