When Sarah Solomon took refuge in an old cottage in the woods, she knew it would only be a matter of time before the monsters came a' calling.
Cursed with a power she neither wants, nor knows how to harness, Sarah has become a target, but who is he...
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The monster didn't look much like a monster, but then again, they never did.
When I was a child, I'd always known that fairy tales were full of shit. While other kids cried about the witch in the woods who wanted to shove them headfirst into the oven, or the child-eating giant that would yank them from their beds by their feet, I'd already discovered the real monsters for myself.
The first monster I'd ever met had looked, well, human. Normal. Of course, that's if normal was tearing open a horse's throat with your teeth, but that's beside the point. I already knew he was wrong. Unnatural.
Not human.
And all it had taken for me to know he was a monster, was the same sensation I was feeling now.
With my back pressed up against my bedroom wall, the current of unease raged through me. It was a fire in my veins. A prickling sensation that surged over my skin, like the constant scratching of a tattoo artist's needle.
It was always like this. This was the sign. The warning. Every single time, it never failed me. Every time a monster crossed my path, this was how I knew exactly what they were. Luther Baines, the last monster I'd had the misfortune to meet, even had a name for it.
Sensor. That's what I was. A Sensor.
Okay, not much of a name, granted, but at least I'd finally been able to put some kind of label to this curse of mine.
I never once imagined, however, that I'd be experiencing the curse because the monster who had triggered my internal alarm system was now tied to my bed, unconscious, after I'd stabbed him in the side and spilt a shitload of his blood over my bedroom floor.
Grabbing the blade from the dresser top, I approached where he lay, his wrists and ankles bound and secured to the bedframe.
The duvet underneath him was drenched in red, from when he had stumbled away from me and collapsed with blood gushing liberally from the deep wound I'd inflicted. I'd just watched, my spine attempting to meld with the windowsill, as he'd desperately tried to cover the stab-wound with his hands, the blood continuing to seep out between his fingers and the colour instantly draining from his face. He'd looked at me then, disbelief and panic in his eyes and for a moment – just for a moment, mind you – I'd felt the shame and horror of what I'd done. Then, when he opened his mouth to speak and I'd seen the elongated incisors, I remembered what he was and felt nothing at all.
He was a monster.
A killer.
A vampire.
I'd always known this day would come. When I'd first moved in, all those months ago, I'd seen it as a positive step, like I'd finally taken control of my shit-show of a life and done something to stop the nightmares. I'd even convinced myself that by moving here, away from them, away from what I'd done, I'd triumphed over all of it. It hadn't taken long for the buzz to wear off. Solitude does that to you, I guess. Sets in like a bad smell you can't wash away with soap and lies. After that, I think I'd known that all I had been doing was delaying the inevitable.
