I call myself a death bringer because the other word is so cliché. I won’t state it here so I hope everyone can infer which mythical monster I identify with. There’s thousands of books and television shows but they won’t tell you the reality of this disease. They add a sparkle to life, brighten it from the deep dark abyss that fills every inch of your soulless soul. It’s easy to fantasize about being what I am but, in the beginning, it was the biggest curse. The cards I was dealt were most certainly not in my favor. I’ll give you a hint, human blood is necessary to survive. Did you figure it out? If not, buckle up for a story of self-actualization and making the best out of a shitty situation.
I started bringing death in the Summer of 2018. It was an extraordinarily hot summer, that skin sticks to plastic and leather kind of hot summer. Leaving the house was all but unbearable and sitting in a dark room alone was the only solution. Completely isolated.
Until…
A flash in the cold darkness. A text!
A friend I hadn’t heard from in a long time invited me to her house. Well… her house and many other goons. Now I’ll spare you the whole epilogue of how I was turned into what I am, because this isn’t a prequel, but a retelling, of how I found my way, so let’s jump into the good stuff. Although it wasn’t all glitz and glamour at first. (Ha! Get it, it’s a Twilight joke).
I thought I made a friend in the girl who turned me, but she only got off on making people’s lives hell. Mine specifically. I was now in the same predicament as before her text, only so much worse. Sitting in a blacked-out room, alone. Except! I had eons of time, and I would be around until the sun burnt out completely.
WHAT A DRAG! Am I right?
Depression is a bitch and even as a soulless death bringer I still felt the sadness bearing down on me. Depression is also a cruel funny thing, and you think anything will fix it until everything fails; Bringing death was my ultimate failure.
I only wanted human connection and to fill the void with friendships, but all I was able to do was kill. I’ve never enjoyed the hunt. I guess my humanity stuck around longer than I expected, and I felt bad for my victims. Their screams drone on for far too long.
Contrary to popular belief we can’t just have a tiny taste and be done. Approximately one human body will last three days and if you hate killing like me, then you try to keep that schedule. You can eat other things to keep your energy up and try to last more days without human flesh, but the fatigue starts to take over.
Alas, I always find myself wanting more and hating myself for it. Life is such a fickle thing. The worst people get a second opportunity, but the innocent get to die at their, well my, hands.
Now as I sat in my small dark room, lost in thought, a knock confused my senses. The door? Who would be coming to see me? Even as a death bringer my anxiety peaked, and I stealthily made my way to the peep hole. Outside was a handsome man, although quite old, 50 if I were to guess, but prematurely greying. His appearance was clean and well put together, not the typical dress one would see in our small beach town, but I certainly appreciated it. I opened the door and to my surprise he slipped inside before the words hello escaped my lips.
“Ah my sweet child of darkness, you’re even more beautiful than I’ve heard, but wipe that expression from your face, and learn to respect your eternal elders,” the man smirked.
My elders? An interesting prospect and having respect for them was something I didn’t have in mind.
“I….” the words once again couldn’t fall out of my mouth before being interrupted.
“I’m David, the head financial elder, of our little… group, I was informed of your transition and thought I better make an acquaintance out of you, why don’t we have dinner together? I know the most elegant place,” he soothed. His voice felt like butter, compelling me to join him.
So, I thought why the hell not, not fully thinking over, how in fact we would eat at a restaurant, seeing as human flesh wasn’t on many menus.
… Until it actually was on the menu.
The drive was quiet, David had the radio turned down to the lowest volume but still hummed the words. We drove in a town car, windows tinted to the highest degree, the kind of car celebrities rented, but here I was, sitting staring at the small crystal bar cart situated in front of me. Chief financial officer clearly came with some financing of personal luxury.
We arrived at The Cart, one of the nicest restaurants in town. The manager greeted us and showed us to the table with the best view. Ignoring all other guests as we went. I had never felt so important, so recognized, so special. As we sat down the question burned in my mind.
What would we eat?
Finally, I blurted out just that, “David… um not to ruin the fun here… but what exactly are we going to eat… I mean it’s not like there’s…” he interrupted me again, that was going to get on my nerves quickly.
“My sweet ignorant girl,” he said with a grin smoothing across his face. “We own these people, we own nearly everything, we are the elite, they are our food, quite literally!” he jeered.
The waiter approached from across the room, “We’ll both have the special, sir, and please make it quick,” the man nodded and headed for the kitchen.
In no time a lovely steak was presented before us. No other people in the restaurant suspected a thing, they had no idea in their small human brains that we were eating them. Now I’ll tell you, this was where things began to look up.
Dinner went swimmingly. David had a crude sense of humor, but I found it to be an interesting change of pace. I didn’t mind spending my time with this stranger because as I stated earlier, I was literally dying for friends. I was invited back to the head house, as they called it, where all the executives ate and slept comfortably. Butterflies grew in my stomach, I’d never felt so special, so needed and then, his eyes flashed towards me there was a fire of passion behind them.
But I was focused behind his head where the world went in slow motion as we walked out of the restaurant passed a pretty blonde female eyeing David. She turned to her companion and said….
“David promised to have sex with me isn’t that amazing.”
A perk: sensitive hearing. I turn to him fascinated a small scoff mixed with a laugh escaped my lips.
His mood changed, the points of his lips found a downward tint and he asked ,“What?”
I smiled wider, he thought he could trick me into thinking I was special, “Do you have sex with every girl you meet?” I cooed with a sickly-sweet smile voice dripping with ice.
To my surprise his answer was calculated, not hidden but forthcoming, “My sweet girl, I was only into men during my human life and now I’m only attracted to women. What would you do?”
He threw his head back and laughed for possibly the rest of the car ride. The perks of bringing death may be more virtuous that I had previously imagined.
***
Arriving at the house there was a woman standing out front, she seemed important, but too young for the role, her pantsuit screamed, ‘I’m in charge’, but her face showed insecurities. “Samantha, our assistant, she’s always ruining things, try not to get involved with her schemes,” David interjected, he seemed to always know what I was thinking. Although he didn’t bring his eyes to focus on the house itself, which had a large chain metal fence surrounding it, unusual I thought, the elders seemed too elegant to have such a crude barrier to entry. Upon closer inspection there were signs lining the fence, “Condemned by the city” they read, in large red letters. Even more curious I thought, as we exited the car. Samantha’s face was more than insecure it was riddled with worry as we drew closer. David sensed it, her eyes kept flicking to us and then the house and then back again, he finally looked. His face turned a pure blood red, smoke essentially shot out of his ears, he was more than angry, and Samantha was about to be his target.
“Samantha, my dear, could you please explain why my house is fucking barricaded?!” David’s tone grew harsher as he progressed. She shrank into herself and looked to me for reassurement.
“See… the thing is David… they just came in and did it… they kicked me out and didn’t say why. I promise I didn’t do anything,” she said shyly. She was skipping from leg to leg, visibly uncomfortable. “Also, and I’m sorry, but I really need to pee could we go inside the house now?” she stammered over the words.
“Hmm… you know Samantha, maybe we could if this fence wasn’t surrounding the whole damn thing!” He yelled, he flicked his hand towards the modern condominium next door, “Go in there, I’m sure they’ll be plenty happy to help you,” he said with finality. He was done dealing with her and was on to figuring out the housing situation.
***
Entering the condo was easy, hell they left the key under the mat. What kind of sucker leaves the key under the mat?
While it was externally nice with baby blue trim and white walls; the inside was another story. Every faucet in the house had been turned on and left on, cats littered the counters, and trash littered the floor. It was a literal pigsty and looked as if it had been left that way for weeks. Samantha quickly checked all the doors until she finally found the bathroom, which was relatively clean, although it included a very shocking surprise. In the shallows of the bathtub lay, a decaying body, not torn to shreds as we would do, but stabbed, maybe ten times in the chest.
We had wandered into a murders house and now things were starting to become fun.
“Should we eat him?” Samantha called out, as I was digging through the kitchen cabinets.
“No, I think we should wait for the sick fuck who did it to get back, he’d be much more delicious!” I exclaimed back. And sometimes the world has a way of answering you. The click of the front door lock piqued my ears. He was back, and with impeccable timing.
I ran to grab Samantha and get ready to meet our murderer at the door. He jumped back when he saw two beautiful women sitting inside his house, but we pulled him in ready for a quick bite…
“Oh! PLEASE DON’T HURT ME,” he exclaimed, “The aliens made me do it I swear, and I’ll never tell the president, he can keep his dirty socks to himself, the maid had found my clay collection in the oven, I couldn’t trust her, you must understand, she would ruin me,” his words ran together like molasses.
Samantha and I looked to each other a bemused smirk adorned her face and I simply shrugged. So, he was crazy, just an adorably crazy, middle-aged man. We humored him, sat, and talked for a long while, about his theories, and murders, about his life (as factual as it could be), and about us. We could tell Oscar that we were death bringers, he nodded in agreement, as if he’d known all along. He’d never tell a soul and even if he did no one would believe him. We were ultimately interrupted by a shouting match outside; one voice was clearly David’s and the other was unrecognizable.
Samantha and I made our way outside with Oscar in tow. David was yelling about the house and a man in a bright yellow hard hat was yelling back. They stood in the middle of the street, it was midnight, so there would be no cars.
I looked back to say something to Oscar, but he was already running, running straight, for the city worker. David’s eyes flashed to us, I shrugged and nodded, it was alright. Oscar took the man to the ground, pulling out zip ties from God knows where and hog tying him. It was majestic like an old western where the cowboy wrangles the bad guy. And now we had a predicament on our hands.
***
Now I’m sure you thought we murdered that city planner, and all devoured his body in a grand feast, but that would be inherently incorrect. Our sweet city planner is the only thing keeping the head house open, and every once in a while, he’d be needed on a conference call.
We committed no crimes that fateful night, we had our crazy friend to thank for that. He isn’t all about murder, but wants to find true love, and our city planner was the perfect volunteer. Well, I suppose you aren’t a volunteer when your hog tied in the basement, but Oscar knits him adorable sweaters to keep him out of the cold. I like to visit Oscar and his boyfriend, they’re extremely adorable together, and hey they live right next door.
True murderers are everyone’s next door neighbors, the people you least expect. You never know who’s going to bring death to the neighborhood.