He had to leave early on our last date. Our parents didn't know about us, and he had to go check in with his father. I had waved him off, smiling and laughing as he made faces. We lived out in the sticks, and it was already dark, the moon a sliver in the sky. But he had traveled to and from my house many times, much later than this. If he ever got freaked out, he would call me, and I would talk to him as he walked. He only lived a quarter mile away. He was on the track team. He always made it home in record time.

He didn't call halfway through his walk, and I wasn't worried. He always made it home.

I found him the next morning as I was driving over to pick him up for school. He was a bloody, quivering lump on the side of the road. I pulled over, screaming his name and yanking my phone out of my pocket. I had run over, ineptly checking his pulse while my shaking fingers tried to dial 911. And calmly, as if I had just woken him up from a nap, he reached over and slid my phone shut.

"I'm okay, babe. Don't call the cops, please, sweetie. I'm fine."

I was sobbing and nodding. "Honey, what happened? Honey, you're covered in b-b-blood…"

He explained: He couldn't see. But it was big, whatever it was.

I took him to my house, because my mom was already halfway to Margaritaville. Alcoholic whore. She wouldn't notice if I had brought in the thing that did this to him. I hated her.

After about three days, his wounds were healed. As if he had never been touched. Totally unchanged.

But on the inside he was different. He was constantly eating. Just meat. He usually ate it before I had time to cook it. And he was angrier: every time I wanted him to go to a doctor, he would practically explode. He never hurt me, but something in his eyes made me feel like a battered wife. He was constantly craving sex. And when he wasn't eating or making love to me, he was sleeping. It was like his mind was gone, and his living body was the only thing he left behind.

One day, I came home and found him on the floor of the bathroom, retching into the toilet. I had run over to rub his back, comfort him, but then I saw all the blood. He was coughing it up. At first I thought it was his, but then I happened to glance at the tub. There was my stupid, alcoholic mother-- her chest and throat savagely ripped out. I moaned and pulled away, pressing my back against the wall.

"Babe," he coughed, weeping and puking. "Oh, god, babe. Please, I'm so sorry."

"Sweetie…" I whispered. He slumped over, shivering, pulling himself into the fetal position.

"Kill me," he groaned. "Babe, please, please, I can't do that… I'll do that to you, honey, please just kill me…"

I stared into my mother's glassy eyes, then leaned over and twitched the curtain to conceal her. I crawled over to my boyfriend, wrapping him up in my arms. He shuddered and sobbed.

"What's happening to me?" he wailed. I was silent as I pressed kisses against his forehead and petted his hair-- the only places on him not smeared with my mother's blood.

"It'll be okay," I crooned. "We'll fix this."

Later, when the bathroom was clean and my mom was beneath the maple in the backyard, he cut into his own arms with a razor. I watched from the doorway, my presence unnoticed. I saw his tears swirl down the drain, mixed with tap-water and blood.

Exactly three weeks after our last date, he grabbed me and pulled me outside. He kissed me violently, forcing open my button-up blouse. His lips trailed down my throat, and his teeth grazed my skin. I could imagine him doing this to my mother in the bathroom: walking in, nibbling on her throat, her fingers running through his hair like mine were doing now, and then sinking his teeth into her flesh. I shivered, tried to pull away, but he yanked me angrily back.

Then he whimpered, reeling back and clutching at his chest. He fell flat on his back, then arched. He wailed, and I could see how excruciating his pain was. I watched him change, and his agony was mine. I wept as his skin split and his bones creaked. I screamed as his eyes changed, his pupils pinpricks against his white-green eyes.

A shuddering monster lay where my boyfriend had been moments before. Tears slid down my face as it suddenly flipped onto its feet and turned to snarl at me. I reached out one imploring hand.

"Sweetie…" I whimpered. "Sweetie, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

I smiled as his teeth sank into me.

Now you have to watch out. Because we might find you one moonless night.