Chapter 1

“Underneath the brightest star sat the darkest stone,

By the touch of the star’s light darkness grew around the stone,

Color of beauty, the star grew sad,

Bleeding rays then fell from the star,

And with the light’s embrace…

 the stone slowly crumbled.”

 

 

Chapter One

 

Whoever thought that it would be easier to come to terms with someone’s death by attending his or her funeral was plain wrong. Kieran believed his mother when she told him that funerals were created to help those left behind to deal with and understand death. That death was just a beginning. He believed her, but she was dead too. Dead like everyone he seemed to have ever met. The bells rang at the beginning of the catholic ceremony of burying the dead, his friend’s corpse.

It was quiet.

Oh so quiet were the people who mourned in a stone statue manner. Their eyes were all glued on the dark casket that held the deceased. A question in each of their eyes, but no one asked. Kieran was among them. They feared to ask the forbidden question they all wanted so dearly to ask the boy.

It was like calling Kieran to death when he listened to the bells’ soft song of sorrow. His features were as marble, cold and structured. A set of eyes that told a story of mystery and darkness were his very own. He stood as everyone else sat upon the steel chairs outside in the widespread cemetery.

“Did you?” was the question everyone wanted to ask Kieran. Even the priest wanted to ask this of the boy who stood behind the back rows of the stiff people.

 “I love your poem, Wren,” a man said to me, snapping my attention away from the memories of Kieran’s life, as I made my way to the bench in the front of the service at the church. “The one you just published. I didn’t know you write.”

I stared at the man whose face was all too familiar. I just couldn’t place his name.

Is this really the time to converse poetry, I thought.

“Really? It’s not published. It’s just a little something I posted up in my store... So, you like it?” I asked with a very hard, forced smile plastered to my tight cold lips.

He nodded.

My eyes stung from the lack of sleep and hours of crying over the death of Simon. The poem that man praised was about death, whether he really knew that or not... It was a “not.” He didn’t know what the poem was about at all.

“So, uh,” he winked at me. “Did the bird live or die? Did the wolf or fox eat it?”

“Um,” I turned from him with a quick smile and made my way to the end of the bench under the stained glass window. “It’s just a poem.”

That poem wasn’t all that great but the people of Tallahassee always said everything I ever did was wonderful, “splendid.” They just wanted my money. That poem may not have been top notch, but it did help me come to some sort of peace with Simon’s death. But I could still feel Simon all around me, calling to me.

I sat down and placed my hands in my lap over my black silk dress.

I never really knew why I saw what I saw. I saw the future, the present, the past… I saw things others feared to see. I saw happiness others would kill for. I saw horrid truths that would kill you.

But most of all I saw him. I saw the devil’s son.

I saw Kieran Cross.

He was like marble. Every time I saw him he resembled a statue.

When I first saw Kieran Cross, I was four. It was an accident. Every mind I entered was accidental and random when I was young. I didn’t know what to make of my vision of a boy two years older than myself. So, I did what every child did. I told my Aunt Eudora, after I started speaking. She laughed it off saying I was daydreaming of my perfect man. Right, at such a young age? That old bat, whom I loved, was so senile.

I tapped into Kieran throughout my childhood, learning how to control my unusual ability of mind reading and sight. I was glued to Kieran’s life.

When I had turned eighteen, it seemed I was always inside his mind. For the next two years I watched like a loyal viewer of a great series. The story started to end, though, when he turned twenty-two. He was at a funeral, much like the one I was at currently. But I was indoors while he was outdoors.     

Flipping through Kieran’s thoughts and past memories of Johnny and Perk, I had landed on the funeral of Johnny Williams. This was most remarkable. How they all acted in this one was so real.

Wait… it was real.

I understood Kieran. I understood why he was the way he was. Why the others feared him. They didn’t understand him.

But… did he understand me when we finally met?

“Did I what?” he asked below a whisper, where no sound came out.

His dark eyes moved among the people who all stayed stiff out of fear towards Kieran. He was not to be feared. He had a sincere smile and handsome features that made all the girls wail over. He was twenty-two, the perfect age to meet a nice girl and start a family in this small Catholic town. If only it weren’t for the fact that Kieran had killed his father and mother the year prior. Sure, it was a supposed accident, but one still wondered… The mystery of his Johnny’s death allowed the town to speculate as to whether Kieran was the one who ended his life.

Two dark suits, a male and a female, stood a couple of yards away from the town’s sheriff, who sat in the front row. They both wore cop-ish sunglasses and had stern looks about them. Kieran just ignored them all together. He was getting out of the town anyway. Someday, he would leave. When? That, he did not know.

“Kieran.” A frail woman of the same age said his name from the chair in front of him.

“Sarah,” her mother hissed and turned her forward.

Kieran stared at Sarah, who was looking down at her trembling hands. They were childhood friends. Sarah’s mother had adored Kieran from the start, but now… she wouldn’t even look at him. This all started a year ago, when Kieran’s father and mother were killed by Kieran’s own hands.

“I can’t help it,” Kieran said again under a whisper, almost mouthing the words. “I am who I am.”

There was a secret about Kieran that only Sarah, and the deceased Johnny, knew and swore on her life never to tell. She loved him to the brink of insanity. He loved her, but feared she would breathe her last breath in his company. Everyone he loved died. He couldn’t let Sarah perish away as well.

One could say Kieran was not normal. Not because an entire town thought he was Satan incarnate, but because he was in fact a devil’s child. Sarah knew this and still she adored him to no end. She was the purest soul, other than Johnny, that ever appeared in front of Kieran’s eyes. Therefore, she was off limits to him, the prince of darkness.

It had started when Kieran’s mom got pregnant with him. She had cheated on her husband with a handsome man passing through their village. More like the traveler had bewitched her.

She then gave birth to Kieran. The whole town fell under the devil’s son’s spell, so to speak. A year ago when Kieran was making dinner for Christmas at his parents’ house, his father found out about his mother’s affair with the traveler. Kieran had forgotten one thing at his parents’ house when moving out. A journal. His mother had told him to keep one because it had helped her when she was young, so he did. He recorded everything; even about his mother telling him who his father really was, a stranger passing through. She had cried so hard when she told him the news when he was eighteen, but he somehow already knew. He didn’t resemble his “father” at all.

The town had called his mother the village w***e behind her back. This angered her husband, who didn’t know. He was blind to the fact that Kieran had inherited none of his features.

But, on that Christmas day a year ago, his father had flipped through the journal that fell out of the closet in Kieran’s old bedroom. It was almost as if someone had thrown him the journal, saying “hey, read me and kill your wife.”

Kieran was smiling that holiday as his mother played the piano in the dining room. He began whistling right when his father started shouting from the upstairs.

The wooden spoon fell from Kieran’s fingers as he turned to see his father strangling his mother. In a flash Kieran was on top of the man he called “dad.” He threw him off with strength that he did not know he had. He started screaming at his father, saying it was Christmas… a time to celebrate, to forgive and forget. He kept repeating himself as he compressed his father’s face into the hard marble floor. He couldn’t control himself. He soon saw blood upon the white floor. It dripped from his pale hands as he heard his mother scream from shock, fear… and relief. Shock, because her husband strangled her and was now dead, fear that her son had killed him, and relief for her husband knew the truth before he died.

Kieran had feelings of rage and hunger. He ripped and tore at his father’s flesh with his hands and began to drink the blood that dripped from the meat. He then shoved the meat into his mouth. His mother tried to pry him off the corpse, scared that her son was in fact a cannibalistic beast. She had dreams that her son, Kieran, was a demon from hell and a spawn of some devil. And to think her dreams were coming true. She wanted her son back, not this demon that crouched over the corpse of her husband.

Out of instinct Kieran slung his mother back into the piano she had been playing cheerfully just moments before. Her arm knocked the black piano, making the glass vase that was propped on the piano fall to the floor. She snatched a shard of glass and yelled for Kieran to stop his behavior. The realization that she had mated with a dark devil and bore a raging monster drove her to drive that glass shard into her throat.

Kieran stopped when he saw his mother faint from the blood loss. He stood up and caught her from collapsing more to the floor. She stared at him and said a few words he would never forget. “Kieran, don’t worry.”

The worship building filled my sight but my mind was still on Kieran. I had always watched him. Now that I think about it. Was I some sort of stalker? It wasn’t like I couldn’t control it anymore. I was an adult and knew how my visions worked. I mean I could… if I wanted to. If I wanted to ignore Kieran’s miserable life, I could.

I did not want to.

I wanted to watch his pain. Call me a sadist if you will. It’s human nature, right? To enjoy another’s pain in order to ignore one’s own? Or is that just my own nature?

The sun was covered by many clouds, which wanted to pour the sky’s tears. The people started to get up from their chairs as the ceremony ended. Still, no one dared look the devil’s way. Sarah hurried along with her parents. Her mother clutched her hand tightly, not letting her peer back at Kieran.

“They fear him,” Aria Daniels said to her partner Leonard Frost.

“It seems so.” Leonard folded his arms and stared at Kieran Cross.

The two FBI agents stared through their thick dark glasses at the tall boy leaning against a slender tree. Kieran stared at the grave being buried, then turned his gaze to the two suits.

“What is so scary about him?” Leonard asked out loud.

“I suppose this town has its reasons. His parents’ grotesque death last year, from self-defense, and this boy’s mysterious death were both in Kieran’s presence. That is more than enough to assume Kieran Cross was the killer.”

“I guess so,” Leonard replied.

Kieran turned away from the two FBI agents and left Johnny’s freshly dug grave. He walked slowly over the cemetery. He stared at the many graves. Johnny had loved it there. He and Johnny would go there, accompanied by Sarah of course. They would all three just lay upon the soil and stare up at the night sky. They would talk about everything. The three had had no secrets.

You loved it here, Kieran thought as he looked up at the dreary morning sky. I doubt you would have liked this morning burial. You preferred the night. You always have…

“Mr. Cross?” the priest asked, following Kieran away from the funeral.

“Yeah,” Kieran asked, cocking an eyebrow.

They spoke to him like he was a traveler, a stranger.

“You should speak to the two agents from the FBI.”

“Why?”

The priest was silent.

“No one is accusing you, Kieran, but you were there at Johnny’s death. For this town, will you speak to them? They will speak to you no matter what, but I wanted to ask you first before they force questions down your ears.”

“Oh, how considerate of you, old man,” Kieran said nonchalantly with a twisted smile. “I will speak to them only because of Johnny, not you and not for this town.”

Kieran walked away.

“Tell them I’m tired. Tell them to come by tomorrow and I’ll talk.”

Kieran walked to the white Volvo, which once belonged to his mother. He got into the familiar car and peered into his rearview mirror at the priest speaking to the feds. He detested the man in the white robes. The Priest, they all called him. A priest in name, but a monster in heart…

 Everyone has secrets, Kieran thought, including the priest.

And Kieran knew the priest’s secret. He had raped his best friend when they were nine years old.

He had raped Johnny

“Rapist b*****d,” Kieran yelled out loud and blared rock music while pulling away.

He couldn’t judge the priest, for Kieran had slaughtered his own parents. He included his mother because in a way Kieran had killed his mother. He drove her to kill herself out of such dark behavior. Kieran couldn’t control himself when he killed his father. Could the priest when he raped Johnny?

Everyone has secrets, he thought.

The phrase echoed in his mind, piercing my own as I watched his memory.

Everyone has secrets.

Everyone has secrets.

Everyone has secrets.

 Kieran screamed out over the deafening music.

 “Leave me alone! I didn’t kill Johnny!!”

Johnny was so sweet and caring even when he knew he was going to die. He just stared at Kieran with sad and yet happy eyes, waiting for death to come take him from such pain called life. You see Johnny’s body was dying before he actually died.

“Where does the soul go when you die?” Johnny had asked Kieran on the grave grounds one night.

They were nine.

“Why are you asking me? Ask the priest.”

Johnny had hesitated.

“Nah, I like you better than that old man.”

“Johnny,” Kieran exclaimed at Johnny’s words.

“Besides you should know.”

“Should I?” Kieran teased the boy who laid his head on Kieran’s shoulder as they both lay on the ground.

“You are the prince of darkness, don’t ya know that, Kieran?”

Kieran laughed at this. He stroke Johnny’s hair and kept laughing until Johnny’s next words.

“I think… the priest isn’t what he seems to be.” Johnny said with a tightened voice on the break of sobbing. “He attacked me, Kieran.”

“Here.” The woman next to me handed me a copy of The Book Of Common Prayer.

She was the first grade teacher, not even recognizing my face.

“Thanks.” I smiled in return, noticing her sad eyes.

“Are you family of Simon’s?” she sniffed.

“I went to school with him…” It hurt so much to talk about Simon.

So, I went back to Kieran’s life. I tapped out of my world and entered the horrors of his.

Maybe Johnny knew what Kieran hadn’t been aware of when they were little. Johnny saw Kieran when no one else did. Johnny saw the real him, not the fake happy one the town had seen. When Kieran listened to Johnny’s confession he grew angry, so angry that he felt the rage of a killer. He wanted to hunt the priest down, but Johnny wouldn’t allow it. Johnny pinned him down as Kieran screamed like a creature of the night from horror tales. He screeched to the point of his voice going out. His eyes watered and Johnny laid his head on his chest, pleading for Kieran to stop.

“Promise me, Kieran.” Johnny sobbed. “Don’t tell anyone. Don’t let the priest know you know. Please, Kieran.”

What do you do when the one you love more than life pleads this of you? Of course you obey. So, he told no one. Not even their friend Sarah, who adored Kieran. Not even Johnny’s parents knew. But what do you do when this same person is among the dead?

You kill.

You hunger.

You hunger for the kill.

“Would you like to speak after the others?” Ms. Beckman asked me, prying me apart from Kieran’s world of memories.

Call it an obsession. Kieran was my soap opera.

“It’s best if I don’t.”

“I understand… Wren?” She finally recognized me.

I smiled my innocent smile as she cried into her hands. Her eye make up ran down slightly under her eyes.

“You were so close to Simon.” She whispered into her palms. “If " If only we had known that he-.”

“It’s okay, Ms. Beckman.” I rubbed her back, fighting tears of my own.

No more Simon. I couldn’t handle this.

It was almost the same as a corpse sitting across from him. He was the same as when he was alive. Well, of course he was. This was just Kieran’s memory playing with him. He can’t be sitting across from Kieran at the dark oak dining table seating eight people who weren’t there, a huge beautiful table serving one now. Such a shame such beauty was wasted on a monster like Kieran. He felt he deserved none of this. His parents’ house was his. Everything that was theirs was his now.

“You still can’t accept the truth, Kieran.”

“You’re dead,” he said coldly.

“You’re the dark.”

“Leave me alone,” he ordered.

“You love me, Kieran. Don’t wish for me to leave.”

Kieran took his wine glass and threw it at the hallucination of Johnny. Johnny disappeared.

It was morning, but Kieran couldn’t face the day sober. He couldn’t face it drunk either.

“Leave me alone!”

He moved his arm ferociously, causing the wine and plate of cheese to fall to the floor. He growled an inhuman growl and stood, while looking at the front door. It’s like he knew they arrived before driving up to his driveway.

He marched to the living room and opened the front door.

“What if I told you I killed Johnny?” he asked as the two feds walked up to him.

He was tired of people talking about him. If he kept denying Johnny’s death, they would just bother him until death itself took him.

“I’m so tired, Leonard.” He said to the male fed.

Leonard hadn’t told him his name. He hadn’t told anyone in that town their names at all.

“So, I killed Johnny.” He smiled weakly walking down the stairs to meet them. “What now?”

The two hesitated. They weren’t sure to believe the boy or not. But this was a confession and they had a law to uphold.

“Kieran Cross, you’re under arrest.”

Kieran didn’t listen as Aria recited the law and cuffed him. He just stared at Leonard. Leonard turned his gaze to Aria and cleared his throat. Kieran made him uncomfortable. Something about the boy sent chills down his spine. Now he knew why the town feared him. He just let out this very eerie vibe.

“We’ll question you, Cross.” Aria said and led him to their car. “We still need proof.”

“I gave you all you need. My word, I killed Johnny Williams.”

The two exchanged looks.

“Something about this seems too easy, Cross.” Aria said. “Get in.”

Leonard sat in the passenger seat as Aria started the engine.

“It’s clear to me who the man in this relationship is,” Kieran said and stared at Aria.

“Kid.” Aria looked at him through her mirror. “We aren’t in the seventeenth century. You may be in this small town, but back in Washington we are up to date.”

This made Kieran laugh.

“I didn’t mean to make it out as a bad thing.” He said firmly.

Kieran shrugged at the feds’ fallen silence.

I watched one by one stand and walk to the podium and recite their speech about the deceased Simon. Ms. Beckman had her hand clutching my hand and her little son Bobby’s hand with her other. She couldn’t stop crying.

Simon loved Ms. Beckman. She was our first grade teacher. Simon helped her with everything and always said he wanted her for a mother. Whenever Ms. Beckman grew to worry he just laughed it off, and so would she. She would have had never guessed her brief horrible thoughts of Simon being neglected would actually be the truth. No one did.

I for sure didn’t…

I felt the stings in my eyes. I swallowed at my dry throat from not breathing.

“Living in a very Catholic town makes you rebel. At least for some of us.”

“Who’s ‘us’?” Leonard finally spoke.

“Sarah, Johnny, and I,” Kieran said. “But Sarah is more traditional. She wasn’t as rebellious as Johnny and I were.”

“Who’s Sarah?”

“The Innkeeper’s daughter,” Kieran replied. “If you wish to question her, she’ll be more than happy to comply. She loves doing the right thing. She tells the truth about everything. It’s sickening.”

He fell silent as he thought about their secret and the night Johnny and Sarah saw what he truly was.

“You’re a devil,” Sarah had said to Kieran, Johnny in front of him, one night on the graves. They were thirteen. It was a full moon and Kieran had been acting strange that night. So, she and Johnny had followed him to the graves. That had been an… interesting night. Kieran closed his eyes as the car went over a bump.

“Kieran,” Johnny had exclaimed as Kieran was digging up a random grave. “What are you doing!?”

Kieran ignored them. He stared wide-eyed at the worn coffin. He lunged his fist through the wood and yanked out the bones. The wood had blistered his fists and blood rose to his flesh.

Sarah held Johnny’s hand in fright at the sight of Kieran staring dreamily at the bones of the grave. He turned to his two friends and smiled.

“Kieran,” Sarah gasped and tightened her grip on Johnny’s hand.

“Can I touch?”

“Johnny!” Sarah yelled out.

Johnny walked up to the crouching beast that looked like Kieran. Kieran growled, unable to remember who Johnny was. Johnny swept his arm out and brushed Kieran’s brown hair. Johnny’s honey brown eyes smiled at Kieran’s dark grayish blue ones. He found no harm in Kieran. He felt the bones with his fingers and jumped slightly at the breaking of his skin. Kieran had bit him with his semi-dull canine teeth. Kieran stared at the blood rising to Johnny’s flesh.

He kissed Johnny’s bloodied fingers. He licked cautiously, knowing not to hurt Johnny for some reason. Even though Kieran was unable to think or act humanlike, he knew this being that stood in front of him, who bled, was not to be harmed.

Sarah just stared at the two. It was so horrid, but so beautiful.

“You’re a demon,” she whispered. “Kieran Cross, you’re some sort of demon.”

Sarah wouldn’t tell their secret though. She swore over and over again that her lips were sealed. She wouldn’t tell, right? She wouldn’t tell anyone how Kieran desired blood and the meat of his own race. Right?

“Come on,” Aria said and pulled the devil out of the car.

Kieran stood up and squinted at the dim light from the sky. So gloomy, he loved it. Still, it was too bright for him. He found that as each day went by his eyesight grew more sensitive to all lights. Leonard walked on the other side of Kieran, holding his arm.

“Interesting,” Kieran said under a whisper like he does when not wanting others to hear him. Only a soft whoosh was heard, almost a sigh.

People stopped talking as the three of them entered the city’s jail. It was a small town, but this small town held one of the most secured prisons in northern Georgia. The town was known for its prison on the outskirts of the tiny town, Perk. It wasn’t even on the map. When people went to the prison, they were surprised to find there to be a town nearby. Most thought the prison was in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees and hills. The people of Perk were never without jobs, thanks to the huge prison not even a mile away.

“Lock ‘im up.” A cop snapped at a few underlings, who were too eager to obey.

“We wish to question him first in one of your rooms, please.”

“Why?” the same cop asked Aria snobbishly. “He admitted it.”

“It’s procedure.” Aria said. “Too many have falsely confessed before.”

“Suit yourself.” He muttered and walked over to get coffee, shaking his head.

Coffee spilt on the cop’s white shirt, making him swear.

“Feds, they are too big headed,” the cop said to a secretary, sitting at her desk to his left.

They entered a small room where Kieran was seated in the center, no table. It was just an empty room with a wobbly wooden chair. He looked up at the flickering light. He hated Perk. They were so behind in everything. They had money, loads of it, but all of that went to their beliefs and the church. Why couldn’t they fix a freaking light? That bothered him, not the two suits, and not the handcuffs.

“Kieran Cross.” Aria turned the recorder on and folded her arms. “Age twenty-two, born in Perk, Georgia. Male, 6 foot and 2 inches, Caucasian with a fair complexion, dark brown hair with hazel eyes, shade: green-blue and a hint of gray.”

Kieran peered up at her talking. She was pretty. Her red hair had streaks of natural blond highlights and her eyes were bright blue, almond-shaped. She looked and sounded Irish.

She kept talking into the recorder, pacing back and forth in front of him. He turned to Leonard Frost. He was tall, 6”5’. Kieran could calculate this measurement with just his eyesight. Maybe it was his demonic blood? Leonard was slightly darker than Kieran. But that’s not saying much. Kieran was like the moon. He had a moon’s sunburn, much like my own flesh. Leonard had brown eyes and dark blond hair. He stood straight with an aura of calmness surrounding him. Nothing bothered him, except when he met Kieran Cross.

Chills came from the darkest corner of the small room where a man stood. He was 5’8. He had light blond hair and… honey brown eyes. He was Johnny. He always was so frail. But then he and Sarah were both so frail. They were cousins, but acted more like twins in nature and in appearance, both blondes, with honey eyes.

“Why Kieran?” he asked softly from his corner in darkness. “Why did you falsely confess?”

Kieran ignored him.

“What do you want from me, Aria?” Kieran asked her, looking up. “I - Killed - Johnny - Williams.”

“Kieran,” Johnny yelled.

“I ripped him to shreds.” He said. “What more do you want? Do you want to know how I killed him? Want to know his blood type?”

“Kieran,” Johnny screamed out. “Please stop!!”

The people were silent. No one spoke about Simon after the speeches were done. Father Berni was back at the podium as everyone else was seated in the oak benches facing him. Everyone’s eyes were red… we didn’t have to speak. We just sat there.

Ms. Beckman was still holding my hand, as if she were to let go she would crumble away into nothing. Or was it I holding her hand tightly, afraid I would float away into the darkness?

“Something about this seems so wrong,” Leonard said as they stared, from their car, at the prison outside the town of Perk, where  Kieran had been transferred to.“I, for some reason, don’t believe Cross.”

“I don’t either, Frost.”

“Should we continue investigating, Daniels?”

Kieran was placed in a cell with a cot and a toilet. A blanket was folded on the squeaky so called bed along with a small pillow. He had changed into the blue uniform all inmates there wore. He was now a lifelong prisoner of the Saint’s Prison in northern Georgia. Well, after the trial and all. But, whom were they kidding? Kieran would be convicted and so this would be his new permanent home.

The guards walked down the halls every hour. It was the first night in the prison for Kieran. He was numb to the cold cement. He whistled at the quietness surrounding him.

It was so silent.

The silence of the night, the coldness of the wind, Johnny had loved it. He had loved the cemetery. He had loved being alone and having nothing on his mind. He had loved the silence that always surrounded him, except for on Halloween. People always visited the graves on Halloween and he had hated that. Johnny had made a mistake by going to the graves on Halloween that night. It was a mistake indeed.

“Lights out,” a guard yelled from the hall and the cell turned pitch black.

Kieran sat against the cold stonewall in his small cell. His eyes were dark with hatred and… sorrow? It couldn’t be read what his eyes told. He was motionless. His dark bangs hung in his eyes and his arms rested on his knees. Johnny was on his mind. That’s why he was placed in the cell in the first place, right? It was because of Johnny.

Kieran straightened his back and stared at the iron bars in front of him. Johnny was his friend. Why did they think he killed Johnny? He had confessed to end the madness. He banged his head against the wall. He ignored the throbbing in his head and repeated this act. Footsteps echoed throughout the prison as he kept banging his head. The night-lights, dim, turned on. The footsteps hurried now as the other prisoners started screaming like wild animals.

Kieran started to bang his head fiercely against the wall, causing a loud sound to pass through the cells of wildness.

“Stop,” a guard stood in front of Kieran’s cell. “St-.”

The sight of the boy the town had once loved stunned the guard to no end. The boy the town had adored for twenty-one years had turned into a man that the town feared. The guard’s old feeling for the twenty-two year old boy rushed back to him as his eyes started to water. Kieran used to be so full of light. He held a smile that cheered up everyone from the ill to the overly stubborn. Now? Now, the guard was staring at a man glaring dead at him with stone cold eyes, covered in his own blood, head to toe.

His head wound was gushing blood down his body. He had also punched the floor over and over again so now Kieran just sat there licking his bloodied hand.

“I need no help. No pity from you.”

The guard called for the others, for the medics.

“I don’t need help!” Kieran yelled. “Don’t come near me.”

He felt the change rising in him, the change that led to his parents’ death. The change that made him ravage the person’s grave that night. The change… that made Kieran hunger for the kill. It was getting stronger. He felt the urge to change every day now. He wanted to kill. He wanted to feed upon them all.

Johnny stood near the iron bars where the guard was opening the door to let the medics and other guards in. Kieran hated seeing Johnny day after day since Johnny’s death. It was driving him crazy. Johnny was dead!

“Kieran,” another guard exclaimed.

It was Roger Cope. He was a citizen of Perk, and was his parents’ next-door neighbor at one point. He was also one of the many that dared not look his way. But, now, Roger had his eyes glued on Kieran. Kieran hissed at him and then the others. Roger’s eyes widened as Kieran licked his own blood fiercely.

The expressions were as expected. They practically shat themselves in place. They knew not what to make of it. Kieran was licking his blood and growling at them all.

“He’s a monster,” another citizen from Perk cried out and ran forward with a needle to numb Kieran and put him to sleep.

They had stood at the gates of the cemetery on Halloween night. It had been covered with kids and the police. Johnny had hated to go to the cemetery on Halloween…too noisy, too many people. A place for the dead was supposed to be quiet and calm.

“You okay?” Kieran had asked Johnny. “We don’t have to do this.”

“No, we do.”

Kieran had grown nervous at the awkward silence that soon fell between them. He’d led Johnny to the gates.

Kieran had said a prayer over and over as they entered the gates to the graves. He believed spirits came more so around Halloween night. So, why had they gone into the graveyards? Well, simple really, because it had been their favorite place to be. They had gone to a dark area where they couldn’t be seen. He had laid Johnny on a patch of grass and stared down at him.

“Are you sure, Johnny?” Kieran had asked.

“Yes,” Johnny had answered. “I’m to die soon because of my heart.”

“It’ll be years.” Kieran had protested. “We can wait.”

Kieran’s heart had twisted together as he’d said those words to Johnny. He hadn’t wanted to think about the day that Johnny would die. The day Johnny’s heart would go out completely was the day Kieran would take it out on the world. He had vowed this over and over again in his mind. The town wouldn’t do anything for Johnny’s heart condition.

“Let’s go somewhere, to a bigger city, where they can put you on a list!”

“No,” Johnny had said. “I’m tired of doctors.”

“Johnny, please.” Kieran had pleaded. “Let’s go to Atlanta and talk about getting you a new heart. We’re twenty-two and who gives a f**k about your parents! They clearly show nothing towards you.”

Johnny had feared a new heart but Kieran’s hope and the sadness in his eyes about Johnny dying had made Johnny ignore his own feelings right then.

“I have no money.” Johnny had said. “And you know my parents don’t really care-.”

“I’ll pay!” Kieran had yelled. “Damn it, Johnny!”

“Okay,” Johnny had said.

“Really? We’ll go now!” Kieran had exclaimed and pulled him up.

Johnny had grabbed him and pulled him back to the ground.

“We came here to be together, right? After tonight, we’ll go. And… it’s a full moon.”

Kieran had felt himself redden slightly, which caused Johnny to laugh as he kissed Kieran.

The kiss had lasted forever as Kieran placed his body against Johnny’s.

The moon had shown brightly on the cemetery but Johnny and Kieran were hidden in the dark. So, when David and Brian had found them it was a total surprise. Kieran had had his hand under Johnny’s shirt as Johnny was kissing Kieran’s neck.

“What the-,” Brian asked in astonishment at the sight of the two.

David had a loathing look to his face. He stared at Kieran in anger. He wasn’t sickened because of the fact that they were participating in a gay act, but because he was jealous. He had had a secret crush on Kieran. He’d wanted to pound Johnny so hard for making Kieran his.

David had Johnny’s neck before Kieran could even see who they were. Johnny had coughed as David yelled. Brian had tried to pry David off but failed. David yelled for Brian to help so he gave in to helping beat up on Johnny. So much for peer pressure…

“Stop,” Kieran had swung at the two boys, younger than he and Johnny by a year. “You morons don’t touch Johnny!!”

“No, Kieran!” Johnny had yelled when Kieran crushed David’s face into a tombstone.

With the power Johnny’s words had on Kieran, he had stopped. And what a mistake that had been. Right when Kieran had stopped, David pulled out a knife and drove it into the weak heart of Johnny Williams. Kieran would have killed David and Brian. He had wanted too, but couldn’t.

David and Bryan ran away.

Kieran had fallen to his knees and held Johnny, crying as Johnny slowly died in his arms that Halloween night, on a full moon.