Cannibal Red

My mum’s best friend Vince is a funeral director, he’s totally obsessed with dead people, and he also believes that people don’t die quick enough.

“Hey Mr. Sanchez,” he’d say to someone when we’re out one day “Haven’t seen your mother around lately, how’s she going?”

You see, nobody ever dies in our town; it’s like everyone’s out to get Vince. There used to be two funeral companies in the town, but the other one moved somewhere else because not enough people were dying. The funeral business around here is hard I guess.
I sort of wanted to help Vince out as I stood in Adrienne’s store, maybe if I was dead Tyler Morgan wouldn’t notice the look on my face, it was sort of like those Japanese cartoons where the character has huge eyes and they’re all drained of colour.
Kill me.
I’m so drained and totally screwed that I don’t notice Tyler turning around and staring right at me. He blinks a few times and scratches at his greasy black hair, and then he turns away shaking his head. He seemed disappointed to me, but I wasn’t pointing at that entirely.
For some reason I found my brain telling my feet to follow him, and I ended up outside Adrienne’s shop watching as Tyler pulled his iPod out, put the earphones in his ears and began to walk. I could hear the annoying voice in the back of my mind again.

He looks so tasty, why don’t you eat him? It’d be fun…

That voice isn’t my voice, it sounds like mine, only it’s more strained and the words are more likely hissed than spoken in a clear voice.
I shove my hands in my pockets and glare down at the footpath; it was so quiet I could easily tell where Tyler was going. It was so quiet I could almost hear the music coming from his iPod. It was so quiet I could almost hear him breathing.
His breathing was calm and almost musical; I found myself swaying, my head lulling; my fingers spreading to feel the cool air surrounding me. I was following Tyler into an alleyway, my head still buzzing from his breathing. It was then that I realized that I shouldn’t be able to hear him breathing so clearly this early because my body hadn’t developed enough for me to be able to hear that greatly.
But before I could dart out of the alleyway I felt a pair of hands wrap around my wrists and my head collide with a brick wall.
I scream and attempt to kick at my assailant, but their legs are tightly pressed against mine and I was in such shock that I didn’t have the energy to fight back.

“Ah, what the… …?” I yelp as my vision becomes clearer and I’m staring back at Tyler Morgan. He watches my face with curiosity, and I swear to god he was practically laughing at me. The idiot.

Oh but Lee, you mustn’t hate dinner.

“Why are you following me?” Tyler says in that quiet voice of his, if he spoke up everyone would be able to hear him, but he spoke so softly so nobody would hear him.
I considered telling the truth, really I did, but there was no point, he wouldn’t believe me anyway. Come on, if you were pushed up against the wall by some guy you’d been fantasizing about eating, would you reply to “Why are you following me?” with “Because I thought you looked yummy.”

So I bite my lip and squint my eyes, choosing not to say a thing.
“Okay, let me rephrase that,” Tyler says, pressing himself up against me more so my back ached from being pushed up against such a hard surface. “Why the hell have you been watching me for the past week?”

It hasn’t been a week; has it?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I manage to splutter, moving my wrists a little, he only pins me harder to the wall, and I know I can’t argue with him.
“Really? Well, that doesn’t make sense because you, you look awfully good,” He says, moving his face closer to mine “almost good enough to eat.”

With that I find myself lunging at him, biting into the flesh on his cheek, but something weird happens, I get a huge headache and my knees buckle, causing me to fall to the ground against the harsh grey concrete. I hiss loudly; everything hurt, something was wrong, I didn’t know what to do but watch as Tyler rubs at his cheek bending down to examine me. I shuffle backwards a little, scared of what he was going to do to me.
He hurt me. That’s not supposed to happen.

“Lee, you can’t eat me.”

How does he know my name? What’s he doing? My heart is racing and I can feel a tear springing to my eyes as the excruciating headache gets worse.

“Lee, I’m not going to hurt you.” I look up from where I was staring at my shoe and hiss at him; he wasn’t going to hurt me. He’d already hurt me. “I’m one too.”

This time I stare into Tyler’s icy blue eyes and he nods “Don’t look at me like that.” I mumble, starting to feel the pain go away.

“Like what?”

“Like I didn’t just try to eat you.”

“Sorry.”

Tyler stands up and looks down at me “you did rip a bit,” he turns his face to the side and touches where a patch of bleeding teeth marks are “it was the blood that gave you that spasm, you’re not supposed to taste one of your own kinds blood.”

I raise my eyebrows at him and shuffle around, gripping onto the wall to support myself as I stand up.
“You okay?” He asks; I roll my eyes at him.

“No, I didn’t just have some kind of seizure.” Tyler steps back from me, as if scared I’m going to lunge at him again. No way, not after that buddy. “I’ll be fine.”

That wasn’t the truth, I was still in a lot of pain, but there was no point in telling him I was in a lot of pain, what if he took me to the hospital?

“What happened there Lee?”

“I tried to eat someone and it backfired.”

Ha, ha. How amusing.

“Can you walk?” Tyler asks; examining my bony legs draped in jeans. I assure him that I’m fine and he nods, looking uncomfortable.

“I’m Tyler by the way.” He says, holding out his hand for me to shake. Of course I knew his name though; I’d been watching him for a week.

“I know.” I mumble, grasping his hand and shaking it.

Looking back I wish I hadn’t gotten involved with Tyler Morgan; he was more trouble for me than I could have wished for. My life was doomed after that goddamn handshake, and I don’t think he ever thought of what could happen to me if I hung out with him.
Of course I’ll get to the reasons why a little further in. All you need to know now is this sum:
Tyler Morgan + Lee Parnell = Ghastly Consequences.

Tyler had let me go, but insisted on walking me home in case something bad happened. I still wasn’t feeling too crash hot.
When I walked in the front door Spike was running around chasing his tail and Mum was in the kitchen stirring a pot and listening to music.

There’s not a lot in common with normal mums and my mum. My mum is obsessed with death metal and only cooks when I’m not home, she’s single and still thinks she’s eighteen, and she never wanted me.

You see before my dad died he and my mum were never married; he just got her knocked up on account of a lot of drugs and alcohol. Mum wanted an abortion because she didn’t think she was responsible enough to handle a kid, but dad talked her into keeping me. Two years after my birth my dad died. Hung himself in our garage from an electrical wire; we’re not sure which one killed him, the hanging or the electricity. My mum hasn’t been able to walk into the garage since; I tend to stay clear of the place too, but sometimes when Vince isn’t around I have to do it. It’s not that it was my dad that died in there, because I hardly knew the guy, it’s the fact that someone died in there.

“Hey Mum.” I say over the sounds of a guitar solo. Mum turns her dirty blonde head in my direction and yawns, possibly spraying spit in whatever she was cooking.

“Hey Sugar.” She says, rubbing at her hung over eyes and smiling at me. She’s always hung over my mum, even if she hasn’t been drinking. I like to say that there’s a lot of different ways to be hung over, people just put an emphasis on the type provoked by alcohol.

“You wanna go put the washing on the line? Oh whoa, you look terrible.” She squeaks, moving over to touch my cheek. “Jesus Christ, go lie down, you’re as pale as a ghost.”

I shake my head. “Nah, I’ll go do the washing.”

Mum puts her hands on her hips then walks over, grasping my shoulders in her warm hands and moving me towards my bedroom.

“How’s Adie?” She asks, referring to Adrienne. Mum doesn’t know about the vampire thing, she thinks I’m getting Spanish tutoring. I don’t even do Spanish.

“She’s okay I guess.” I say, letting mum fuss with me and practically throw me into bed.

“That’s good,” Mum says, going over and closing my blinds. “G’night Lee.”

“Night Mum.”

Sometimes I wish she’d had that abortion.
Sometimes I’m happy just the way it is.