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Simon
Simon wiped the rat’s blood from around his mouth. It was not as satisfying as human blood, but it would do. There had been no food at the park, except the girl, of course. She had surprised him. He didn’t like surprises. But now he remembered the way she had held him with her eyes, and the slight taste of fear on the night air. He regretted having left so fast.
He had crouched in this alley behind a row of shops for twenty minutes now, catching and drinking, catching and drinking. They were hiding now, the rats. They knew something was up. Big cat, he thought, and smiled a thin, glittering smile.
Time to move on. He stood and stretched, lean-muscled arms reaching skyward. He wore only a T-shirt despite the cool fall night. It was black like his jeans, like the high-top Chucks trimmed with white. He was fond of black. Shadows, he thought. Night. It satisfied him to wear black, yet his laces were red. “Blood,” he had whispered that evening at the thrift store, when his fingers would not leave them alone in the bin. They tangled around his nervous hand until he had to fling them from him or buy them. He handed a dime from the gutter over to the woman with the suspicious frown and fled to this same alley to put them on.
Where would he go from here? The park? Maybe that girl had left by now. But maybe not. I should go anyway, he thought, and smiled again, the same glittering smile. She was beautiful, dark like the night, but thin, as if one of his brethren had already claimed her. A frown changed his features suddenly, then disappeared as quickly. No. She did not have the smell of that upon her. There was something voluptuous about her, though, that reminded him of death. Big breasts, too, he thought, and chuckled at his peculiarly human preference.
But she had startled him. He had found that park two weeks ago, and no one came at that time of night. He had let his guard
slip. That was dangerous, foolish. No, he would not go to the park, he decided. It would keep. She had sat there with a familiarity that suggested habit. He would see her again. He would go to that house instead. He had only a few blocks to walk from here. He would see what that boy was up to.
Simon left the alley cautiously. It was not good to be seen at the same place often. It was an excellent hunting place; he did not want to lose it. He walked the pavement with shoulders hunched, hands in jeans pockets, as if against the cold. Who knew who was watching? He would have to get a coat. The street he traveled intersected the alley that ran behind the houses on Chestnut Street. He made a right. Five houses along he stopped at the end of a long backyard.
There were no lights on at the back of the house. The yard was mottled with moonlight. Simon flowed from shadow to shadow, between trees and bushes, as if a shadow himself. He might have been a cloud in front of the moon. He reached the rough brick of the house and crept to the oak tree at the corner. With the ease of a cat he scaled the tree and flowed up to a perch on a sturdy limb. He barely rattled the brittle autumn leaves that still clung tenaciously to their twigs.
He could see into a bedroom. It was an anonymous room. The walls were bare, nothing there to suggest the personality of the occupant. But there was an occupant, a small huddle on the bed. A boy of about six or seven curled with a book, reading by moonlight with a teddy bear close beside him. You’ll ruin your eyesight, boy, Simon thought, and grinned wickedly. It was a thicker book than you would expect a six-year-old to be reading, and Simon itched to see the title. Occasionally, the boy would suppress a laugh and shake his head, whisking his delicate white hair through the moonlight.
Then the door opened. Gold stole silver as the hall light shone into the room. A young woman stood in the doorway, smiling as she caught the last flurry of the book being concealed under the covers.
“Christopher,” she said softly, “it’s a little late to be playing. It’s nearly midnight. Settle down, dear. Get some sleep.”
“Uh-huh,” the boy answered, and snuggled into his pillow. She blew him a kiss and left, closing the door.
Simon saw the boy lying there with his eyes open, staring into the night, still defying sleep, still smiling. There was a growl in the back of Simon’s throat he could barely contain. It almost choked him. He climbed down the tree before it burst from his mouth. It was not the right time or place.
Below, there was a clatter in the kitchen. Dishes were being put into the dishwasher, and two sleepy voices were talking. He listened close to the window.
“… should have settled in by now,” came a man’s voice.
“But it’s hard for a young child,” the woman answered, “adjusting to a new home.” “It’s been a month.”
“Yes, but after a year in that home, and God knows what before?”
“Yeah, guess you’re right.”
“He’s a sweet boy.”
“A bit quiet.”
“Oh, he’ll be a brain. You’ll see.”
The man laughed. “Got it all planned out, have you?”
“Sure. Nobel prize.”
He laughed again. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.” The light went out.
“It’ll work out, you’ll see,” said the woman. “You can’t expect perfect when you adopt an older child.”
“Yeah. It’s a pity about that delicate skin as well. Too damn sensitive. Maybe if we …” His voice faded into the center of the house.
Simon sat in the bushes for a long while. He breathed the night, made plans, and abandoned them. No one in the house stirred. Dreams shimmered in the windows; all except one window, where dark hunger beckoned.
Finally, Simon heard the first predawn bird cry, and he rose to his feet in a single supple motion. His body made no protest at the breaking of the vigil. It was as if it were only seconds ago he had crouched there to watch. Silently, he left the yard by the way he had come and, accompanied by awakening birds, made his way back to what was home this week—an abandoned elementary school on Jennifer Street.
He pulled aside a board and slid through a smashed window into the principal’s office. The room, begrimed with dust and cobwebs, had once been a synonym for hell to sixth graders, but now all that was left was an old file cabinet with only one drawer working and a desk with rusted seams. There was no chair. Built-in shelves lined the room, and the wooden floor had once been handsome. A battered suitcase sat on one of the shelves.
