Alejo [Vampire]

Alejo- Chapter 11

::CHAPTER 11::

I was perfectly conscious as the dream unfurled. My eyes were shut and my body was locked off on the most basic level, always ready to awaken at the slightest nudge. Even as the first scene of the dream began, I knew that I had lived this moment before. The déjà vu-like sensation of reliving it was a fist to the gut. This was part dream part memory and I was looking on as a third party. A third party who, oddly enough, seemed to know the most elusive details that weren’t overtly shown in the dream.

It was the year 1829. A teenage boy stood at a window shaking at the bars that kept him from opening the glass panes leading outside. He was thirteen but he was no twig. The boy had the lean muscle of the farmers who plowed the fields in the area, making a living from the calluses on their hands and the sweat on their brows. He helped his pa every morning at the crack of dawn and the hard work showed in the arms that flexed with every shake of those motionless, metal bars.

He was not trying to get out. He was smart enough to know that the bars would not budge. This was not a bid for escape. It was a show of anger and frustration. It was pointless but he felt the grueling need to vent to the point of exhaustion. Even if that meant looking like a caged animal turned mindless with rage and desperation.

The boy knew that they were coming for him. The hospital had been around for only a few months but his ma didn’t want to send him away until she knew that he would be well taken care of. No one knew much about the place except that it was where they took people who were sick in the head. Loons they called them. It was the first and only hospital of its kind. One meant to help its patients not simply contain them. The young boy didn’t want to go and once upon a time, he could count on his ma to be on his side.  Now, she had no say in the matter.

The neighbors had taken it into their own hands and gotten the police involved after yet another pet turned up mutilated in a backyard. It was stupid. The boy knew that. He should have been more careful. He shouldn’t have showed off. Should have hidden the bodies. Buried them. But he didn’t. He hadn’t wanted to hide them or his talent. He was an exhibitionist. He wanted everyone to see what he’d done.

In the beginning no one had known who the perpetrator was. The police had no leads and no one could do anything about it. Then he got sloppy. He went along with the crowds to see the looks on the owners’ faces when they saw their little Rover or Cupcake or Spike cut up, gutted and splayed open like some twisted offering. He hadn’t been able to resist the smile. The look of pride and unbridled satisfaction. This was his work and everyone had come to see it. He felt like an artist at a showing. Every week the turn out grew more and more and no one suspected the little boy next door.

It was five kills ago where people began getting suspicious. His own parents had turned a blind eye to the hints; the missing kitchen knives, the muddy shoes and mysterious stains on his sweaters. They didn’t want to believe that their sweet boy would do something so heinous. He was the yes-ma’am, no-sir sort of boy. Nice to everyone in the town and so polite too. No one could fault his manners. He didn’t – no couldn’t – murder anyone’s pet.

But he had.

When people began to suspect, the rumors spread like wildfire but the police had no evidence. Some neighbors had seen the gleam in his eyes, the joy on his face and his enthrallment with the mangled animals when the crowds gathered. Absolutely sloppy. Last week put the final nail in the coffin.

The boy wanted to show off his genius. He wanted to be looked at with awe and to see the horror that always splashed the owners’ faces when they came face to face with their animals. He had begun his work, cutting with meticulous motions. This one had to be perfect.