Hunter's Moon

His eyes widened in sudden recognition. Then he winced as a spasm of pain seized him, and he coughed up blood. Crimson trickled from the corners of his mouth.

"Ah, yes..." he gasped as he attempted to leer at her. "The little French Canadian girl who'd just moved here from V-Vancouver. A sweet, tight little virgin, as I recall. Even tighter little asshole. I thought I k-killed you. Of course, after you put out my eye, I Changed back and ran off into the woods. I was mad with pain."

"The stick I grabbed off the ground was sharp enough to do the job." Simone said. "I was more dead than alive when they got me to the hospital. I wasn't expected to survive. Two weeks later they discharged me; the only mark on me was the pentagram-shaped scar on my right shoulder, where you first bit me. They said it was a miracle."

"So w-what's your point? You've won. You shot me with a silver bullet, and I'm g-going to die..." He gasped in agony. "N-not soon enough...God...hurts..."

"All my lost memories came back when I heard you howl. I'm Simone Delacambre - my real name - and you destroyed my life that night, you son of a bitch! You took my innocence, and you took my future. I had a dancing audition on Broadway the end of November. But it never happened. I wanted you to know that."

Simone wiped away tears with the back of her hand.

"There was a full moon two weeks after I was released from the hospital. I woke up in my room the next morning, naked, covered with blood. Everything was covered with blood - the bed, the floors, the walls, the ceiling - and there were pieces of my Mom and Dad scattered everywhere. I thought it was you, coming back to finish the job, and you missed me somehow. Then I realized it was me. I was a werewolf - a She-Wolf."

His eyes narrowed.

"Wait a minute...If you're a w-werewolf, why haven't you Changed? There's a full moon tonight. Did you find a cure? I have t-to know!"

Simone sighed, and a sad, bitter smile touched the corners of her mouth.

"In this case, the cure was worse than the disease. I ran. For the next six months, I slaughtered and feasted on innocent people. I was disgusted with myself. One night I made a decision. I checked into a fleabag hotel. I had some shotgun shells loaded with silver pellets, and I put my mouth over the barrel of a 12 gauge and pulled the trigger..."

Simone closed her eyes.

"Legend has it that werewolves can become vampires when they die," she murmured. "So can suicides. I was a doubly cursed - a werewolf who committed suicide. I woke up a vampire in the morgue three nights later, whole and unmarked. I was so hungry. I was stalking the attendant when he turned and smiled at me. His name was Blake, and he was a vampire, too. But he was a special kind - a Nightwalker."

"What the hell's a...Nightwalker?" he gasped.

"Nightwalkers believe that vampires don't have to be bloodsucking beasts who prowl the night," Simone continued. "We try to live as normal a life as we can. We don't bite and drain people; we drink bottled blood and serum substitiutes we keep in the refrigerator. By day we sleep in beds, not coffins, in a sealed, light-tight room."

Across the highway, the two little ballerinas had reached the corner house. "Trick or Treat!" they squealed in unison. Simone sighed wistfully.

"Maybe one of them will dance on Broadway some day..." she murmured.

The dying man coughed again. "So...you were a She-Wolf, and now you're some kind of...g-goody-two-shoes v-vampire?"

"A Nightwalker," Simone said. "Blake took me in, became my guardian and made me his ward. Even though I was restored to life - of sorts - as a vampire, my memory was gone - trauma from the shotgun blast. All I could remember was the horrible nightmare of...what you did to me. Then four years ago my memories were re-programmed so I could assume a new identity - if you look like you're eighteen years old for sixty years, people start getting suspicious. You have to change things up. I voluntarily submitted to it; I just remembered that now."

Her jaw clenched.

"And even after that, even after being mindwiped, I still remembered the nightmare. And I've come here every Halloween for the last fifty-seven years looking for you."

"Well...I h-hope you're happy. You've gotten your revenge."

Simone smiled and shook her head.

"Oh, no - I haven't even begun to take my revenge."

"Bitch..." He spat blood at her, and a shiver of terror rippled through his body as she slowly licked it off her upper lip.

Her beautiful face had undergone a horrifying transformation. Her skin had turned corpse gray; her eyes were now glowing red pools of blood, and her canines had lengthened into long, sharp fangs. Her voice was hollow, like a tomb.

"I've never taken human prey...until now," she whispered. "But before I do...I want you to experience everything I experienced on that night. Everything..."

She touched her fingertips to his temples. His eyes flew open, and he began to scream, hysterically, despairingly, until all he could do was sob.

Finally, after what seemed to him like an eternity of agony, she removed her hand. She smirked.

"John Tremaine," she murmured. "Like me, you've kept your real name all this time."

"You bitch!" he sobbed. "Just k-kill me and get it over with. You've had your fun."

"Oh, no - the fun is just beginning, John," Simone hissed. "I'm going to bite you and kill you and turn you. When you arise, you will be my thrall, my slave. For all eternity. I will make your life a living hell."

"No..." Tremaine moaned.

"Oh, yessssss...."

His screams ripped through the night as her fangs sank into his throat, then segued into throaty moans as she injected him with pleasure venom. He could feel his erection swell, and his pain faded as Simone drained the blood from his body.

He ejaculated as he died...

Simone glanced down at his pale, lifeless body; then she bent down and licked the glistening threads of semen off his cock and balls and groin, drawn by the blood cells in it. She stood up and waved her hand. The earth heaved and collapsed under him, and swallowed him up, and then smoothed over.

A layer of leaves skittered over the makeshift grave.

"I'll be back for you in three nights, my slave," she whispered.

Simone walked slowly back to the BMW and climbed in. She couldn't remember when her heart had ever been so light; it was as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She smiled as she started the engine. She hadn't planned on attending the party at the lodge, but she had just changed her mind. She'd show them a thing or two about dancing.

And she had the perfect costume...

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