004 – SEEING THE DEVIL UP CLOSE.

🦋 CATALINA 🦋

As soon as my hands and legs came loose, I almost ran towards the front door to scream at the police that I am in trouble, but nothing guarantees he won’t kill the officers and kill me too. I’ve seen what he has done, so I know what he can do. And if he is indeed a vampire, I doubt even 10,000 police officers can stand up to him.

I have just one chance, and if I screw it up, I’m tonight’s dinner.

Instead of running towards the police and putting us all in trouble, I hold him instead and run towards the bedroom to hide him in my closet. Hopefully, he sees that as a good thing and doesn't kill me by the end of today.

I run back to the sitting room, hide the chair and rope, and walk towards the front door with a fake smile on my face.

“Hi,” I mutter, hiding my pale wrist from the effect of the tight robe behind my back. “How may I help you, officers?”

Two officers stood at the door with a wide, friendly smile on their faces. “That took a while,” says the one by the right. “We got a report of strange noises coming from your apartment, so we came to check in; can we come in?”

“Oh, yes, I almost burnt down my kitchen a moment ago. I was cooking spaghetti and got a little distracted. I did make weird noises because I was scared the whole house would burn down, but everything is cool now, just a little bit of a cooking mess, perhaps you don’t mind helping me with cleaning.” I say as I open the door to let the police officers in.

“Unfortunately, cleaning is not part of our job,” the same person responds while the other one just stays mute beside him. “The kitchen was indeed almost burnt down; luckily, you weren’t harmed in any way. Can we check your bedroom also? Just to be sure everything’s fine?”

“No!” I snap, and the police turn to face me suspiciously.

“Why? Do you have something you’re hiding in there?” he asks, a questioning expression on his face.

“Yes…” I blurt out. Of course, I do have something hidden there, more like someone – a vampire killer.

“My privacy.” I supply. “Do you have an ulterior motive? Perhaps you are working with the killer and thief, since you are weirdly interested in going into the bedroom of a lady who lives alone at such an ungodly hour. We’ve learnt to always be alarmed in Lion’s city. Thank you for checking in on me, officers, but as you can see, I’m standing and breathing just fine, so you can leave my house now.”

This definitely sounds stupid, as is my decision to hide that bedbug in my closet.

“It’s a good thing that you’re being careful, although we are only doing our job,” says that one police officer on the right. “Then, we’ll take our leave.”

As soon as the door closes, I puff out a sigh of relief and gently walk towards the bedroom, silently praying the monster won’t just slit my throat open or worse, dig his fangs into my body.

Getting to the room, I walk towards the closet. Clearing my throat to announce my presence. “You can come out now.”

Instead of his coming out, a hand grasped mine in a swift movement, and I found myself in the closet with him.

My back hit the wood as I struggled to fit in the small space. The closet is so small that there’s no room for me to move away from him, the air thick with the smell of old wood.

My back is pressed against the rough wall, the sharp splinters digging into my skin, and his hands are tight around my throat.

I can feel his not-avoidable muscles as he pressed his chest on mine, my eyes, wide and luminous in the dark, meet his.

There’s a silent conversation in that look – a plea for him to let go. His thumb brushes against my jugular vein, a small movement that sends a shiver of terror through my body.

“Get off me!” I whispered-screamed.

“I can still eat you,” he growls, low and threatening, and I can swear he can feel my heart pumping so fast against his.

“I just saved your ass,” I manage to speak, forcing myself not to look away from his devouring gaze.

“That’s such a cute big mistake, big fucking mistake! And although you’ve earned your freedom, your life is mine now. You are mine, and I’ll be back to take it. If you try to run, you won’t go far, and I’ll make your death more painful… so just sit still and gobble down a lot of air until I return,” he whispers close to my ear, and it feels as if I got connected to power, because I felt an electric shock flowing in my veins in place of blood.

“No! Don’t ever come back! This is goodbye! To never cross paths again! I saved your fucking ass… so you are going to fuck off my life,” I fire back.

His lips twitch behind his mask as he looks down at me in the small, warm, cozy, tight place.

Stares.

Stares.

And more stares, one that’s hot enough to melt me like steel.

“Come out of the closet and put your hands up in the air, we know you have someone there with you. I’ll have you know that harboring a known terrorist would penalize you with at least life in prison… it would ruin your whole life.” The police voice suddenly echoes, just outside the closet. Funny how they think I’m not aware death is smelling me, about to make me dinner.

I slam my eyes shut in disappointment, “Shit! Shit! Shit! I thought I got rid of them? They weren’t convinced enough? When the hell did they walk into this place?”

I bite my lower lip as I slowly push my head out of the wardrobe, giving an awkward laugh, then I slowly step out, covering him with my body in the process, still trying to hide him… another foolish mistake.

I’m not sure who I’m protecting, tho, the police officers, or the devil I have in my closet.

“Who’s in there with you?” The officer barks, the particularly annoying one always standing by the right.

“No one,” I lie, trying to come up with a believable explanation because apparently, the last attempt was a total fail! “I kinda feel safer in the closet… before you ask, I was talking to myself.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” the officer argues, then pulls out his gun and points it towards the wardrobe. “Walk out of there slowly with your hands up in the air.”

*No movement*

Slowly, with a little to no movement at all, the officers walked towards the wardrobe and flung it open, “FBI! Put your hands up in the air!”

Those were just stories, because in the blink of an eye, the gentle officer who just stood limp on the side, saying nothing but following orders, fell to the ground, holding his neck and jerking in pain as blood gushed out of his throat.

The other one, the particular ‘I know everything’ one, trembles as the devil in my wardrobe grasps him and slowly steps out of the wardrobe, his eyes bloodshot and… soulless. He wasn’t like a living human being.

His shadow swallows me as I look up at him like a god, taking steps backwards with shaky legs, until I reach the wall, having nowhere else to retreat to. My pupils can only dance around the scene, straight out of a horror movie… I’m fine, except for the fact that I’m scared, frightened, petrified, horrified, aghast, spooked, frozen, paralyzed, and many more.

As easy as deveining shrimps, the police’s body was torn apart brutally, his blood splashing on my face and body. I stood there limp and pale as his intestine fell to the ground in one go.

Too extreme for me to handle, a scream burst out of my lungs and vibrated the whole building, so close to peeing myself and then passing out, hoping the horror would be over by the time I woke up.

“Shh… we don’t want attention,” he hushes, his bloody fingers pressing against his lips, and I immediately imitate him, placing my hands on my trembling lips to hush myself and not piss him off in fear.

Slowly, he walks towards me, and although I want to move far away from him, I am already at the wall, so I can only stand still and shiver against the wall. He reaches me and pulls his mask up, stops at the bridge of his nose, leans in, with his index finger raising my face, and licks the police officer’s blood off my face.

Ewwww.

A violent tremor ran through me, a bone-deep shiver that was part cold, part terror. My body was a coiled spring of tension, every muscle locked tight, my jaw clenched so hard it ached. Yet, through the shaking and the rigid stillness, a strange sense of shock had taken hold, a numb disconnect from the horror unfolding before me. I was a living paradox—quaking with fear, frozen in tension, and distant in a fog of disbelief as his tongue danced around my face.

“I’ll take care of the body – take care of the blood. In conclusion to what we were saying before these rats interrupted, “Fair! I’ll let you go. Then I hope we never cross paths again… you’ll be my little secret sin, but just in case we meet again, I’m Corvin,” he says, extending his bloody hand for a handshake.

“Meet again?” I thought. “For goodness’ sake... No!”