Dark Moonlighting by Scott Haworth

boy
ignoring his embarrassment and asking me, a stranger, for help. He
had been new in the apartment complex, and evidently he had not
heard of my reputation for being a loner from the other residents.
He was not intimidated by my facial scars. Perhaps he was even put
at ease by my obvious flaw. To his credit, he never once asked me
how I got the disfigurement.
    “You want it here?” I asked, pointing to an
empty space on the wall. I moved to the location after receiving an
approving nod. “Let me show you a little trick to find a wall
stud,” I lectured as I clenched my fist and pressed my ear to the
wall. “You have to knock against the wall and listen. If you’re
over a stud it’ll… there it is. You hear the difference?”
    Anthony practiced knocking and smiled
triumphantly when he found the location of the stud himself. I gave
him a hand hanging the painting and nodded approvingly once we
managed to get it straight.
    “Thanks for the help Mr.,” he started.
“Sorry, Nick.”
    “No problem,” I responded as I headed for the
door. “Now I’m going to go sleep like we old people are prone to
do.”
    “Oh, I almost forgot,” Anthony said. “I
tracked down that IP address you asked about. Turns out it was from
Illinois like you thought. The computer is up in Chicago.”
    My heart rate jumped at the good news I had
just received. I glared longingly at the little piece of paper that
Anthony fumbled with and eventually removed from his pocket. When
he handed it to me, I read over the address three times in
excitement. It was all I could do not to lick my lips. I wanted to
leave for Chicago immediately, but knew I had to be patient. It was
already early morning, and the sun would be up in only a few
hours.
    “Excellent,” I said happily. “I was hoping it
wouldn’t be too far. Thanks, I couldn’t have tracked it down
without you.”
    “It was no trouble. God knows I owed you one
for all your help. Just out of curiosity,” Anthony began
delicately. “Is this an ex-girlfriend you’re trying to track
down?”
    “Something like that,” I responded.
    I was still staring down at the address as I
walked out of my neighbor’s apartment.
     
    The problem was always that damn predatory
instinct. If it was just a matter of blood I could have gotten it
from work. I could have stolen it from the hospital’s blood bank
without raising eyebrows. I could have sucked it off the asphalt if
I was the first cop to arrive at a crime scene. Hell, I might have
been able to go around late at night and pay homeless people for
their blood. Unfortunately, being a vampire is about more than just
drinking blood. The virus makes us killers.
    In the early years of being a vampire, before
I suppressed my feelings of guilt, I sometimes went months without
killing. I even commended myself for the control I was able to
exhibit. Those attempts at morality always ended the same way.
Eventually the thirst and the need to kill became too strong. After
months of fasting, I would finally snap and go for the first human
I saw. I came to realize that vampires have a compulsion just like
arsonists or pedophiles. I abandoned my practice of waiting to feed
for several reasons. First, I found that attacking random people in
an uncontrollable rage is a good way to get a mob of pissed off
villagers after you. Though it is completely healed, I swear I can
still feel the wound from a pitchfork that was jammed into my ass
outside of Marseilles in the early fifteenth century. Secondly, I
prefer to pick my targets. The best way to overcome the inevitable
remorse of taking another human being’s life is to only kill those
who deserve to die. After years of experimenting I settled on
hunting, on average, once per week. I could kill more or less
without too much difficulty, but for general health and happiness I
found that a weekly schedule worked the best.
    I barely slept that night after receiving the
address from Anthony. I tried to watch television