End of the Road
Boom! The world warps into slow motion as I hear her gasp and watch her begin to fall, but it takes forever for her back to hit the pavement. Then everything rushes back into real time and I'm standing in front of her, holding her up, my hands slick and slippery with blood. Her blood.
This is the moment. This is the end of the road. The moment that every one of my kind has always come to dread. The real reason that we are the way we are. I'm bending low, calling her name. I don't think she can hear me. She gasps and chokes but her struggles to breathe only make the blood flow aster. Our eyes meet and I'm being sucked into her brown eyes, as her pupils begin to dilate into black holes. I realize that all we've got s exactly ten seconds in eternity. Ten seconds and then she's gone. Freeze...everything comes rushing back to me.
The first time we met; it was in a dark alley. I was on the prowl and she was about to become prey. A different sort of prey. I saved her from a nameless asshole and walked her home. She asks me to come in for coffee and I don't refuse. I spend the whole night but I'm gone by morning. So is the asshole- he won't be missed. And that's how it all starts. My Carla. She's nineteen and works in the dive joint across the street.
Every night I'd make my way to the alley and wait up for her and I'd walk her home. She'd make me coffee, always coffee. Straight. Black. Bitter. And then I'd be gone in the morning. We don't talk much; there's no need to and that's what the night was for. Talking without speaking. She knew to wait for be me the door. There are things that go bump in the night. I go bump in the night.
Carla's five times younger than me but she's never asked my age. She's never asked for my story or where I'm from. She's never asked why I only show up at night or why I never stay till morning. She's never asked why it's always coffee. I never ask for different; I couldn't ask for different. Only coffee. She couldn't have and even if she could, it wouldn't come up in conversation. That's Carla. Hunters are bastards- all kinds of hunters. I'm a bastard; I'm guilt by association
Pop of a gun; straight through me, straight into her. Moonlight rippling over water; water slowly trickling over the bridge. There's blood all over the street. It's mixing with yesterday's beer and circling around the used condom on the floor. Two years of her life, a mere bat of the eyelash for me, and now just ten seconds. Ten seconds and eternity. The end of the road and the sad thing is, this time I can see it coming. My silent little wax doll, your eyes are swallowing me whole and you never asked the one question. Can I take death, can I give death? Is that her heart beat?
Unfreeze...5... 4...3
2...
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