Aiden would have bet his life that the Prendevilles, just two doors up from his Dad’s house, were Vampires. The evidence was clear to him, it was irrefutable and there was lots of it. How he could have been so wrong continues to remain a mystery to him.
The press dubbed him ‘The Smiling Slasher,’ which Aiden felt was very misleading as there had been no slashing at all. In fact the only point at which he had used a knife on the Prendevilles was to decapitate them, and that had been more of a sawing motion. In truth, it had been surprisingly difficult to remove their heads with the knife. Even the children had been a bother. Mr Prendeville had been so tough to get through that he had actually considered going back to his house to fetch Dad’s handsaw. But time was against him.
His goal had been to start at 2 am and be finished by no later than 3 and although there was no school as it was the weekend he had arranged to go swimming with his friends in the morning. However, tt was closer to 5am when Mrs Prendeville’s spine finally gave up and he has able to cut through the last bit of skin and gristle. And you still couldn’t call it slashing. Of course the job still wasn’t done. He had begun his work after breaching the Prendeville lair’s defences via a loose rear window. By creeping up the stairs and into the bedroom, and striking Mr Prendeville solidly across the temple with Dad’s ball-pein hammer he achieved complete surprise over the monster. There had only been a dull thud, and other than his head being pushed a little deeper into the pillow there was no sign of Mr P reacting to the blow. Mrs Prendeville didn’t stir at all but just to be sure that Mr P wasn’t going to leap up and tear out his throat Aiden swung again. This time there was a satisfying crack. By the faint light cast through the curtains he saw Mr P’s eye bulge out a little under his eyelid. A good sign. He made his way around the bed to Mrs P who still slept soundly.
As he moved around the bed a little confusion crept into his thoughts and as he raised the hammer high above his head a question floated by, nudging at him, upsetting his concentration.
Why did they sleep at night?
‘Ah…’ he remembered.
These were not ordinary vampires. There are many different kinds, different types, strange breeds with special powers. These were Daywalkers!
He brought the hammer down.
Using a tent spike he had scavenged from Dad’s garage he staked each of the bodies. Aiden was very pleased that his delivery of the weapon had been near perfect. He had felt for the breastbone, to the right, and targeted the point just two fingers width away from there. Two hard and accurate strikes plunged the peg into deep into each chest leaving only a couple inches of it protruding. All that remained was to turn the dreadful Nosferatu to ashes. As it was much later than he had anticipated he contemplated simply opening the curtains in each room and letting the sunlight do its work. Then he recalled the Prendevilles had some sort of resistance to this, being Daywalkers and all that, so it would have to be via good old fashioned fire. Yes, they often left the house during the daytime. The kids both went to the junior school near to where his gran lived. Mr P masqueraded as an accountant. An occupation of evil if ever there was one. Or so his dad had said. He wasn’t sure what Mrs Prendeville did to disguise her real nature but Aiden didn’t think it mattered now. What did matter was that the street was safe.
He decided that it was best to stick with the original plan and set the house alight, but not before taking a photo. Beaming with pride he stretched out his arm and pointed his phone toward his face. With the bloody corpses of the Prendeville children just visible behind him he pressed the button and then updated his Facebook status with the picture and a comment.
‘Got em folks! First time and like a charm!’ *bat-emoji*
He had been relieved when the Court had declared that he was not insane (as his idiot defence lawyer had tried to claim). And smiled when the Judge declared, ‘As such you will feel the full force of the law’ in his summation. Aiden had liked the Judge; he seemed to know what he was doing and clearly understood that he had just been mistaken in his dispatching of the Prendevilles, but obviously people had been hurt so he would have to go to prison for a bit. That was only fair.
Prison was fine. Aiden had a great cellmate named Jasper who set fire to homeless people and liked to m********e him, which was pretty cool. The other inmates gave him a wide birth though. Even the scary looking ones kept their distance which Aiden thought was odd. He always tried to be very friendly.
There was one problem though. Something Aiden had realised and that no one else had noticed. The lads two cells up from his were obviously Zombies. Fortunately, Aiden knew exactly how to handle that.
