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  “Would you like me to show you what’s behind this door?” He smiled wickedly. There was something about his smile that jogged an uneasy memory from the night before. Paul had grown teeth when he smiled like that, hadn’t he? Surely that was some sort of a dream, but it made her skin crawl nonetheless.

  Lenore shook her head ‘no’ and could feel frustrated tears popping out of her eyes. Richard stared at her for a moment with his arms crossed and nodded thoughtfully.

  He had changed clothes since their last encounter. Muscularly built, his designer apparel complimented a tall figure and cruelly handsome face. Lenore remembered being quite intimidated by Richard when she first met him at the coffee shop; people like her and people like him did not accord. She felt momentarily embarrassed as his eyes studied her vomit-stained shirt and hair. Attempting to gather back some of her composure, Lenore stood up straight and wiped away her tears.

  Richard lifted his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again. Instead, he turned around, signaling Lenore to follow. He led her to the kitchen sat down at the table. “Have a seat,” he said.

  She followed his instructions and sat across from him, nervously looking down at her hands.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “You slept for nearly sixteen hours.”

  Lenore shook her head and mouthed the word, “no”. Sixteen hours? She wondered what time it was.

  “Excellent,” he smiled. “Neither am I”. And, looking at her to establish eye contact, he added, “But I will be in about a day or so, and when that happens you’re in a heap of trouble.”

  Lenore was confused. “Why? What happens then?” She could feel tears welling back up behind her eyes.

  “That’s when I‘m going to kill you.”

  A new wave of tears descended, and Lenore turned away from the man in front of her. She wanted to say something, anything, that would convince Richard to let her go, but knew whatever escaped her lips would come out as a sob.

  Richard’s lips curled in a half-smile. Was he enjoying this?

  Leaning back in his chair, he continued. “I’m not telling you this to upset you. Do you understand that?” Lenore did not understand that. “There‘s a point to all this—I wouldn‘t bother having this conversation with you if there weren‘t.”

  Richard looked around the room impatiently as Lenore attempted to stop the ebb of tears. If he was going to kill her, why couldn’t he have done it while she slept? Why wait until she was wide awake and terrified?

  When there was a sufficient break in Lenore’s sobbing, Richard continued. “So I don’t think I had an opportunity to introduce you to Angela. She was the dark haired girl in here last night. Do you remember her?”

  Lenore nodded. She was not sure where this was going.

  “And you remember my buddy, Paul, from last night, too, right?”

  Lenore nodded.

  “I had a chat with Paul after you went to sleep and he admitted to me that he did something very rude in front of you.”

  Now Lenore could see where this was going. “He drank blood,” she whispered.

  Richard smiled at this. “That’s right. Paul and I suffer from a similar…” He lifted his head, struggling to find the right word. “…condition.” He looked at Lenore to make sure they had an understanding on that point before moving on. “So I’m sure you can imagine, it’s very difficult for me to find people willing to let me drink their blood on a voluntary basis. Angela was one of those people. Now, as Angela is regretfully not with us anymore, I’m in a bit of a tight spot trying to replace her.” He paused for a moment. “Do you—do you understand what I’m telling you so far?”

  Lenore had stopped crying and stared back at him. “I think so,” she said.

  "Wonderful. So one of two things can happen when I get hungry again." Richard held up two fingers and cleared this throat. "The first option is that I'll take you inside that room over there." He pointed to the bloodstained doorway, the very mention of which made Lenore gasp. Richard raised his hands and added, "I swear on my mother I'll be as quick as I can possibly be, so relax. That's the worst-case scenario." He smirked. "So let's call that option ‘Door Number One'".

  Lenore did not know what the second option was, but she was pretty sure she was going to go with Door Number Two.

  "The second option—and this one is tricky, but I've gotten pretty good at it over the years—is that I can feed without killing you if you do exactly what I tell you to do.”

  Lenore raised her eyebrows. “And then would you let me go?”

  Richard smiled and shook his head. "Obviously no. I can‘t do that. See-see that's why you might want to think about this before making a decision right away. There aren't any windows in this place. No phone. No friends or family. For all intents and purposes, you're dead, you're just dying slowly is all. It works out better for me because I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is coming from, but I’ll be the first person to admit that I’d probably be doing you a favor finishing you off quickly. It really isn’t any kind of life I‘d want.”

  “So why did Angela do it?” she asked. “Did you tell her all this?”

  "Nooooo…that was a totally different situation altogether. See, Angela was into this lifestyle that was all dark and alternative and she sought this type of thing out. She wanted to be like Paul and me and thought that by offering herself up we'd eventually turn her. I can't even tell you how much that was never going to happen. Anyway, the reason that I'm telling YOU all of this is because you don't seem to be one of those wannabe freaks that I'm fucking sick of, which is good on one hand because it means that you aren't crazy, but it's also bad because it means that you don't exactly want to be here."

  “So Angela wasn’t the only one who’s done this?”

  "No, there have been several other donors…and I'll even level with you: they all wind up dead. Eventually, everyone sees the back room over there." He grinned. "How‘s that for a sales pitch?”

  “How long do I have to think it over?” she asked. But she had already made up her mind. Door Number Two sounded almost as bad as Door Number One, but at least it would buy her time to formulate an escape.

  “Take as long as you want, but really think it over. I’m not going to bother you until I’m hungry again, and until then you’re my guest here, okay? Angela kept a ton of food in the pantry. You’re welcome to it. I’m not going to sit around and make you coffee like Paul did, but feel free to help yourself to whatever you want. Just clean up any messes you make. That‘s all I ask.” Richard eyed Lenore’s shirt. “Actually, come with me first.”

  As they walked out of the kitchen, Lenore became suspicious that Richard was leading her straight to the slaughter room a few feet away. She relaxed as they walked past it to the other end of the hall. Richard stopped in front of the set of closed doors that Lenore had been too frightened to open earlier.

  “Angela packed her entire life away when she came here,” Richard explained, opening the door furthest down. “I know you guys aren’t exactly the same size, but maybe you can find a fresh change of clothes in here. Angie had her own bathroom—you can take a shower too if you like.”

  Lenore walked into the hole-in-the-wall bedroom and found it to be a mess. Drawers were thrown open, the bed was turned upside down, and items were littered all over the floor like something out of a drug raid. From where she stood, even the bathroom appeared to have been ransacked.

  Richard looked sheepishly at Lenore and said, “Yeah, I know it looks pretty bad in here. Paul and I went through her things yesterday. It didn’t always look like this.”

  “What were you looking for?” she asked, more out of reflex than curiosity.

  “It’s not important,” he said dismissively. “Listen, I’m heading out for a while, but you should be all set as far as clothes and food and such. Is there anything else you need?”

  There was one thing. “Do you know what happened to my pack of cigarettes? I usually keep th
em in my purse but I can’t seem to find them.”

  “You mean these?” Richard fished her pack of Marlboro lights from his back pocket. “I’m saving these. If you decide to go out the quick way, I’ll let you smoke one beforehand because I’m not a complete asshole, but if you’re going to stick around here for a while then you better figure on quitting smoking. Deal?”

  “Deal.” What choice did she have? Besides, cigarettes were soon to be the least of her problems. An unpleasant metallic taste was forming in the back of Lenore's throat, and this was regularly the first symptom she experienced when going into withdrawal. Another day or two without Xanax and things would deteriorate exponentially.

  “Okay, if that’s all, I’m going to get out of here.”

  When Lenore turned around, he was gone, and she was left standing alone in all that remained of Angela's short legacy. Although it was difficult to picture what the room had looked like before being been torn apart, it was plain to see that Angela had lived a very lonely life. The walls were barren of any decoration, and Lenore noted that not a single picture of a friend or loved one existed on the threadbare furniture. A small wooden bookshelf was filled to the brim with romance novels and brain teasers. On the floor lay a thirteen-inch television, having been knocked off its entertainment center; it was connected to an Atari and eight-bit Nintendo.

  The vanity along the wall revealed Angela’s other pastime, which was evidently taking care of her nails. The surface was littered with hundreds of polishes, decals, extensions, trimmers, and countless files. Lenore frowned as she pictured Angela sitting on the bed, day after day, painting her nails in the blue light of the television. She thought back to the image of the girl sobbing on the carpet and wished she could have done something to help her.

  Willing herself to change focus, Lenore walked to the dresser and started hunting for a change of clothes. She was not optimistic about her prospects. At five pounds underweight, Lenore did not imagine she would fit into items tailored to Angela’s mid sized frame.

  She was pleasantly surprised. The top drawer contained a pair of jeans that might stay up if she could find a belt. The drawer beneath contained an oversized t-shirt that proudly displayed the words: YOU CALL ME BITCH LIKE IT’S A BAD THING, but it was clean and that was all that mattered. Now came a more difficult decision—did she use the dead woman’s underwear? Lenore located the underwear drawer and was delighted to find several banal choices forged from 100% cotton.

  Gathering up her finds, she stepped into the bathroom, careful to avoid the scattered remnants of the medicine cabinet strewn about the floor. She drew the shower and discarded her vomit-stained clothing. Stepping into the stall, she closed her eyes sighed as a stream of hot water ran over her body. Angela had several scented soaps, and the aromas threw Lenore into relaxed contemplation.

  She wondered if anyone had missed her yet; it seemed unlikely. Lenore had no immediate family to speak of and worked from home with remote clients and far away deadlines. Eventually, she mused, her landlord would wonder why she was behind with her rent, but it was not due for another three weeks. By the time anyone had noticed her absence, the trail would be completely cold.

  Surely her host was not really a vampire, but a mounting uncertainty had started to fester in the back of her mind. In the end, did it really make a difference one way or the other? If Richard was going to kill her, it did not matter if he was the Easter Bunny or the Angel of Death himself; the threat was still the same and the need to escape just as real. Thinking about this fact shot Lenore into another round of hysterics and she could feel tears merge with the steady stream from the shower-head. This was weakness; she needed to pull herself together.

  Taking a deep breath, Lenore stepped out of the stall and donned her new attire. Angela’s pants sagged loosely about her waist. She looked around for something to tie them with, and her eyes hit upon a lace scarf lying amidst the clutter on the floor. As she attempted to thread it through the belt loops, Lenore realized that her hands were shaking. Muscle tremors—another sign that her body was starving for the next dose of Xanax. It took three attempts to tie the final knot.

  She stepped back into Angela’s room, noticing for the first time that a round clock hung on the wall beside the entertainment center. Its hands read 2:43—was that am or pm?

  Did it matter? She turned the mattresses over on the bed and lay down, uncertain of what she should do next. She might as well check her cell phone one more time. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out the phone and was devastated to discover that the battery had died while she was in the shower. There was no hope of calling for help anymore. No one knew of her plight, Richard was going to return, and—more importantly—she was out of Xanax.

  Lenore restlessly contemplated her withdrawal symptoms and wondered how long they would last. She remembered the humiliating lecture she received from her general practitioner the last time she found herself in this predicament. “You’d better have kicked this for good or the next time you might not be so lucky—benzodiazepine addiction is serious and if you go off too quickly you could have a seizure.”

  And she had been lucky, hadn’t she? Foul taste, insomnia, muscle tremors, not to mention exquisite mood swings, but no seizures, and after three weeks she felt right as rain. That was only from 12 pills a day, however, and this time she was coming down from over 20. Lenore had four separate doctors prescribing the drug. What she did not spend on rent or food went to four separate pharmacies, only one of which billed her insurance provider.

  A full-blown panic was beginning to take hold. Lenore needed to distract herself, but how? Food. Food would mask the terrible taste in her mouth. Food would take her mind off the trembling in her hands.

  She slid out of bed and walked down the hall to the kitchen. Richard’s pantry contained several unhealthy choices, including Lenore’s favorite: rippled potato chips. It also contained dozens of bottles of Gatorade; Angela must have loved that stuff.

  Angela loved Gatorade. She also died across the hall. Right behind that door over there. Remember how she screamed? Lenore turned her head toward the bloodstained door and shuddered. It seemed to be moving closer to where she stood. She pictured Angela crouching behind it, getting ready to leap out and drag her inside.

  Lenore’s pulse was racing. She grabbed the bag of chips and hastily shut the pantry. She then sprinted back to Angela‘s room, feeling as though the dead woman’s ghost were chasing her the entire way.

  Panting, Lenore threw herself on the bed and thought about her next move, which was likely to involve the sleeping pills in her purse. They offered a temporary escape, even if it wasn’t the physical kind. It might be best to wait on that plan, however, and only use the pills in an emergency. If she had not been so hasty with the Xanax the night before, she might still be enjoying them now. Scared and in desperate need of distraction, Lenore busied herself with one of the novels left by the room’s former occupant, only succumbing to the call of Ambien ten hours later, when the clock on the wall read 12:04.

  Lenore woke again at 8:57 (am or pm?), her system feeling entirely out of whack. She wanted to take more pills and sleep off the withdrawal but knew she needed to stay awake for a few more hours in order to harness their effect. Fitfully, she picked up the romance novel she had been reading earlier before placing it back down in distaste.

  There had to be more palatable alternatives in Richard's library. The walk down the hall ended in a hasty U-turn, however, as she glimpsed a male figure sitting on one of the sofas. Lenore's heart raced. Richard must have returned while she was sleeping.

  “Hello, Lenore,” Richard sang out as she scurried back to Angela’s hole in the wall. She slammed the door and sat down on the bed. Silent as a mouse, she listened to the sound of footsteps approach and stop at the entryway.

  “It’s okay—you can come out of the room if you want,” he called through the door. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m still not hungry. You sound like shit, by the way
. Your heartbeat’s all irregular.”

  How would he know that?

  “Hiding in here isn’t going to do you any good, by the way. When the time comes I’m just going to come and get you, so you might as well come out. Were you coming to get a book? You can, you know. I’m sure you’re bored in there.” There was silence for a moment, and then the footsteps faded back into the hallway.

  After giving it some thought, Lenore decided nothing was worse than sitting perfectly still and waiting for Richard to come and get her ‘when the time comes’. She rose and opened the door, this time walking cautiously back to the library to find Richard sitting exactly as he was before.

  She browsed the collection of items on his shelves, taking care to avoid all eye contact with her would-be murderer. Richard, for his part, appeared entirely too engrossed in a task at the computer to pay her any notice. After hasty deliberation, Lenore selected a collection of short stories entitled “The Lady or the Tiger” and took it back with her to Angela’s room. She read until the clock struck 1:15, at which time she took another round of pills.

  ✽✽✽

  Lenore awoke to a rapping at the door. She peered through half-shut eyes at the clock on the wall. 6:47 (am or pm?). She rolled over as the cogs in her mind sluggishly turned. Richard. Richard had come to get her. Startled, she shot into a sitting position with her back pressed firmly against the headboard. Then she watched, unable to breathe, as Richard came in and sat on the opposite edge of the bed.

  Looking at him now, Lenore was unable to rekindle her feelings of fear and desperation from the last time they met, although she certainly was afraid. She concluded that her recent preoccupation with Xanax must have achieved a somewhat desensitizing effect. Either that, or the sleeping pills were not quite out of her system.

  “How was your nap?” he asked.

  Lenore did not respond. Upon waking, the taste in the back of Lenore’s mouth was almost unbearable. What had started out as something vaguely metallic had morphed into what she imagined might be the gustatory equivalent of Athlete’s foot. She swallowed fitfully.