When you're a kid, you believe all that stuff about vampires and werewolves. You believe that there's a ghost under the bed or in the cupboard, or sailing through the open bedroom door towards you, drawing a shrieking-sharp intake of breath as it suffocates you with your mother's night dress. And then you reach the 'age of understanding', the age when you find out that not only do the bad things not exist, but neither do the good. That's when you start to wish they existed, when every scrap left of that innocent and terrifying world is washed away. That's when life becomes make or break. This is the time when everything changes.

Feigning Human

The painted orange English sky welcomed in a new day. A gentle breeze floated through the air and brushed against the burnt-red brick houses that stood in silence as shrivelled leaves rattled past in the street. Summer had roasted the plants and trees, scorching anything in its sight. And still, in the death and chaos of the heat, nature was beautiful and pure. Far purer than the single being now stirring in a bedroom of her parents house, would soon be.

Her skin was unnaturally pale, her hair enhancing this by being a deep brown, and as she stretched with a feeling of joy at the new day, a fresh start, she noticed the clock on the bedside table, and swore. "Shit!" Amanda's long legs swung out from her bed as she threw back the covers, muttering underneath her breath. She hurried to struggle out of her pyjama top- a task that would have been easy, had she not miraculously managed transform it into a straight-jacket in the flurry of panic. Amanda stumbled to the en-suite bathroom, a stroke of genius, she felt, in her calling 'dibs' on the room before her parents could on the day they first moved in, back in October of 1998.

Amanda still missed her father: She had been seven when he had died. Seven when she had watched the glistening salty tears rolling down her mother's cheeks, down her own cheeks as she stared back at herself with those heavy brown eyes, the eyes that he gave her. She still hoped that, some day, she would learn of the reasons behind her father's suicide, the reasons why he thought driving off a cliff and into water was better than seeing his daughter grow a day older.

Several bristles began to break off of the cheap toothbrush that ran across Amanda's teeth with lightning speed. She was beginning to regret the bargain buy that had boasted four toothbrushes for seventy-five pence. But for someone who had grown as skint as Amanda, it was the best she could get. Her teeth may have shone in a shade of pearly white, but her hair still resembled something Frankenstein's monster would model. How did her hair always manage to get into that state? How did it manage to go from A-list celebrity, to Orinoco's Womble fluff in the space of one night? She made several attempts to tame it with her strongest hairbrush and straightener, but with little time on her hands, Amanda settled for forcing the weaves of brown hair into a stiff ponytail behind her head. By now, she had slipped into a pair of flared black trousers, a thin white shirt, and a pair of black heels that she had only worn once before, to her father's memorial service, two years ago. Why she had insisted on dragging all that back up ten years to the day, was something Amanda had never asked.

Of course her mother had suffered when the only man in the house had died, of course they had both been forced to sit in separate rooms of a strange building while some thing woman with pursed-lips and straw hair had told them to express their feelings, and had then set them 'tasks' to help get them back out socialising as society felt they should. Amanda had hated it all. She had even contemplated suicide just to escape the drawn-out hour-long Thursday meetings.

As she hurried to put on some eye-shadow, there was a hiss outside the house; the first bus of the day had arrived in the street, and nobody else was outside to tell it to wait. The driver had only stopped due to a mother not noticing her toddler pressing the red 'stop' button. Amanda gasped as she swung her black bag over her shoulder and darted from her bedroom, nearly falling down the small spiral of stairs, throwing open the front door, dropping her keys, picking them up, attempting to lock the front door with the wrong key, and nearly ripping her hair out as the bus went on without her. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" Why was everything going wrong? Why did it always go wrong for the nineteen year old? Why couldn't she just make this one job interview without any problems? Forcing herself to calm down enough to lock the front door, Amanda began clopping towards the small garden gate- which kicked open and scurried through like there was no tomorrow. Her heart raced as her heels pounded the pavement, and her ankles almost flipped over completely. Had she not started attending the gym a year previous, Amanda doubted she would even have been able to run the length of the street.

The morning may have been a floating, daydream sort of warmth, but Amanda could already feel the drips of sweat from the back of her neck as the sun resumed its extreme heat. She wondered if she had ever run all the way from the sleepy estate on which her parents home resided, to the heart of the blustering town. The answer, to her knowledge, was definitely not in heels.

Suddenly, a loud crack emanated from the heel of Amanda's left shoe. She would have fallen to the floor, had she not managed to grab the brick wall in time. Yet, she now had a screaming white graze across the side of her little finger. The flustered girl didn't seem to notice this as she grabbed the broken off heel of her shoe from the concrete path, examined it, and ripped off her left shoe with a loud shriek "SHIT!" It lasted for several, dramatic, seconds, before Amanda flung the shoe to the ground. She had been meaning to leave it, but when she needed at least a pair of shoes on her feet for this job interview, she found herself picking it off the ground and jamming it onto her feet. She could feign a heel, for now. And so, walking on her tiptoes, her hair falling out of the neat ponytail, her eye-shadow somewhat askew, Amanda rushed the as fast as she could to the interview.

Arriving, at long last, outside of the modern building, Amanda found herself with a minute to spare, and she began adjusting her look in the mirror; she sucked in her stomach as far as it would go- which wasn't incredibly far, considering the fact that any appearance of flesh on the woman was, in fact, muscle. Amanda picked at her hair, teasing it into place. It wouldn't go. Thirty seconds. She wiped off a little eye-shadow, evening out the load, and she removed a tissue from her back to dab at any beads of sweat she could find. With no time left, Amanda whipped the band from her hair and pushed it onto her wrist like a bracelet. Her hair, ironically, looked better as it flowed around her shoulders, soft, yet light. With a final grunt of frustration and a deep breath, Amanda stepped inside.

The metal shelves of books were arranged, it seemed, by genre, then by alphabetical order. It was an incredibly simple and obvious thing, but if Amanda wanted a job at the library, she would need to remember at least that. And then came the problem of not knowing where to go: There were very few people in the library- just a middle-aged woman browsing the biographies, a man stacking shelves, and a young boy playing on a computer in the corner. It was not the surprisingly red spectacles of the middle-aged woman, or the strange, flashing images that silently generated across the boy's computer screen that caught Amanda's attention, but the man stood on the ladder who she could have sworn had been stacking shelves, but now appeared to be wielding a book he was replacing, was staring straight at her. The angle at which his head was turned, seemed almost inhuman. Amanda was a little taken aback, and stepped awkwardly onto the back of her shoe where her heel should have been, causing her posterior to collide with the solid carpet. The man stacking books raised his eyebrows, smiled on one half of his face, and went back to filing.

Amanda felt so humiliated, even though he had been the only person to see her fall. Still, if she, by some miracle, still got the job, he would become her co-worker. As this thought ticked through her head and she slowly got to her feet, Amanda her the unmistakable sound of someone tapping their watch and coughing. "You're five minutes late," the light Scottish accent informed her, leading her eyes to the man who owned the voice. "I do hope this is a one-off," they were about the same height, and as her potential boss looked down at her feet with an unsurprised expression, Amanda noted the balding ginger head. "Follow me." With no question, Amanda followed the Scotsman behind the reception desk, and into a small, white room.

Amanda's heart sank. She wondered if she would throw up, for the file of resumes and grades, and various letters of praise and details, had not been on her bed that morning and, therefore, it had slipped her mind to bring it. The man opposite her had seemed stern, but now that look dropped and was replaced by a sympathetic, warmer one. "Don' worry, Amanda," he said, smiling gently at her, "a Mrs. J. Thorn was kind enough to post a file of yours in the early hours of the morning'. She left a note.." as he trailed off, Amanda thought scoldingly of her mother. I can do things for myself. I can cope with my own life. The note was soon read out, "Mr. H. Locke. Please find enclosed the necessary (list of contents, below). I hope that you find my Amanda more than capable of doing this job, and I am aware of just how much she has wanted it. Please go easy on her as we are both still grieving the loss of a loving father and husband. Mrs. J. Thorn." Amanda was blushing with her head in her hands. This was more than she could take, and she half expected Mr. Locke to ban her from the library, altogether. Fortunately, he didn't. Rather than mocking her for her mother's words, Mr. Locke seemed to take the matter in his stride. "What di' she think I'd be doing? Whippin' you with my belt?" He smiled and gave Amanda a small nod. "As all your paperwork seems to be in order, I think we should just work through a more verbal interview. Such as, what is your favourite classical book?" The pace at which the meeting seemed to be going on, combined with the fact that it was going on, had thrown Amanda, completely. "I.. Well, I suppose it would have to be.." She wracked her brains for just one book that she had read that wasn't Doctor Who or Harry Potter. Her taste in books had never been particularly mature, but it had never been a problem, before. Fortunately, there was one book she had read that happened to be a classic. "Pride and Prejudice." Amanda stretched her lips into a confident smile. Mr. Locke seemed to notice this, and he mimicked her in a sociable way. "Ah, excellent choice. I'll be betting you're a fan of Mr. Darcy, then?" Amanda had never really thought too much on the subject, before, but as nerves crept up on her, she nodded her head. Locke beamed. "Brilliant. You wont mind if I call you 'Darcy', then." Amanda had to stop him there. "But.. My name's Amanda. Amanda Thorn." Locke raised his eyebrows. Amanda was seriously hoping he didn't have memory loss. However, he simply replied "We already have an Amanda at the reception desk- I admit, like you, she's a wee bit late, today. Calling you Darcy would save confusion." In Amanda's opinion, it would do nothing of the sort, however, the way he was talking was certainly doing wonders for her hopes of getting employment, and she smiled back as though this was fine with her.

Several minutes of being talked at by a cheery Scotsman later, Amanda emerged from the room, receiving and introduction to the other Amanda. The other Amanda was short with glaring blue eyes and blonde hair, as though whoever she looked at was less welcome than a Trekky converter at a Star Wars convention. The man who had stared at her before the interview, had been pushed from Amanda's mind, but now he was there, up yet another ladder in yet another aisle, watching her, staring at her. Locke nodded to the man. "Alright, Arthur?" He called out to the young man who could be no older than his mid-twenties, with smoothed over brown hair and eyes that matched in colour, he smiled in a much friendlier manner. "New recruit?" he answered back, Amanda finding herself unable to stop looking at him, but only because she still felt intimidated by him. "Maybe." Locke called out. He rounded on Amanda. "Darcy, this is Arthur- he's only been here a few months, but fitting in already." Locke was obviously fond of the man, and he walked away to speak with the other Amanda. Amanda slowly approached Arthur. And there was that look, again, the heavy stare that penetrated her skin like an x-ray. "I think you're in with a good chance at getting the job," he was being so polite, yet his piercing gaze went on, "I'll be seeing you." Amanda took that as her cue to leave. She smiled at him as she turned away, hoping, desperately, that if she got the job, Arthur would not be there.

Arthur watched Amanda leaving, watching the vein pulsating in her neck. Is was practically throbbing, screaming at him. There was a terrible pain just beneath his stomach; the hunger was driving him. It was telling him to wait, not to take another victim in the meantime, because this one would be worth waiting for. Where other men may have sought Amanda's lengthy legs and sculpted body, Arthur craved her blood.