Goddamn Electric Nights by William Pauley III Page B

my bloody finger along the edge of her tape deck mouth. The
color display on the TV was no longer blue but instead a whole range of warm
colors – oranges, reds, yellows – all swirling into the next like some endless
whirlpool.
                 “Blah. Duh,”
she whispered back at me through the television speakers. I pushed my finger
deep into her mouth and squeezed a few drops into her. The colors on the screen
began to flitter and strobe, so much so that my eyes were having difficulty
focusing. I wasn’t for certain if it was the rapid flashes of color messing
with me or if it was really happening, but for a few seconds, very faintly, I
saw a face. Her face, Suzie’s face, staring back at me
through the television screen. But only for a few
seconds. Then she was gone.
             I
again squeezed my finger into her mouth, this time giving her a generous amount
of my blood. The colors strobed and very loudly I
could hear her breathing, taking in air in giant gulps, as if it were a glass
of water and she had been stranded somewhere for weeks without it. Maybe even years.
             And
then she was there with me again… on the television screen. She smiled at me
this time and goddamnit , it was electric. I had never
seen anything more beautiful in my entire life up to that point, or even after
that, to tell you the truth. She had on thick blue eye-shadow with long black
eyelashes, like the movie stars from the ‘50s used to have. Her lips were
bright red and always looked wet. She had a beauty mark on the right side of
her upper lip. The rest of her face was bright white and didn’t seem to have an
end, stretching all the way out to the edges of the television screen. I was
speechless. I didn’t know what to say, what to do. I sat there on my knees
staring, admiring her beauty. She held her smile the entire time. She almost
seemed a little shy towards me.
    After about a minute had passed,
she was gone again. And my heart stopped.
             I
sat there in the darkness, unmoving, for what seemed like a lifetime. I didn’t
know what to do. I had found the most beautiful woman in the entire world, but
I couldn’t keep her living. I couldn’t give her any more blood, at least not
the amount that she needed. Or could I? I mean, I simply couldn’t keep feeding
her my blood. Eventually I would die and someone else would find her. No, it
had to come from someone else.
             I
started with my parents. As I mentioned before, they never appreciated the gift
of life anyway. My first time killing was by far the hardest for me mentally,
but the easiest for me emotionally. I didn’t love my parents, they were
strangers to me, but I also wasn’t a murderer. Not yet, anyway. So I had to do
it while they were sleeping.
             To
keep from seeing their faces, I covered them up with a pillow. Being just a boy
then, I didn’t have the strength to overpower and suffocate them, so I stuck
the pillow over their faces and slit their throats with my pocket knife… before
they even had a chance to open their eyes. Before they had the chance to get a
good look at their killer - me, their only son - and look at me in the eyes. If
they had, it would have been the first time they’d ever done so.
             I
dragged their dead bodies into my bedroom and hacked them up one piece at a
time, feeding Suzie the raw slabs of dripping meat, bones and all, until they
were completely gone. It only took Suzie a week to finish the two of them off.
She didn’t even give them a chance to stink before she gobbled them up and
asked for more. And I wanted to give her more. I wanted to give her everything
she needed. So I did.
             I
went out and found more meat. More blood. More bodies. Anyone and everyone that I
could lure into my house. The easiest was other children. Friends of mine. They gave me no trouble. It was around my
fifth or