Benny could stare at that face all day. He was glaring endlessly into a newspaper clipping from the 15th of June, 2008.

Local Whitechapel Girl Found Slain

And peering out through glassy eyes was Laura Weir, bleached blonde Emo hair with a single rosy highlight and round, brown eyes like saucers, excited and full of life.
The police had barely mounted an investigation into her death mainly because Laura's killer left no evidence, no trace that anyone had killed her. Not even the dust around her body was disturbed. A lame search party and a few questioning cops was all Laura got. This was before my grief stricken father was elected Sherriff.
I knew from the start whoever gave Laura her second scarlet smile would never be found. Maybe it was something in their eyes, walking around like they were half-asleep. It was like they couldn't wait for it all to be over; so they could go home to their loved ones, get hot food in their bellies, put their feet up and forget the whole horrid lot. But Laura would never come home. Laura would never eat or rest again. Because Laura was buried in harsh dirt, rotting and looking down in shame at the Whitechapel police department for abandoning her.
Maybe they could sense there was something more to Laura's death, like it was broadcasting on a low frequency of unexplainable and strange that was too much for them to handle.
But now Ethan had the power to find the evil son of a bitch that slit Laura's throat so deep they almost tore off her head. People liked to tell stories about Laura if you looked in the right places. Laura wasn't a tourist attraction but in Whitechapel you can guarantee that if you walked into any teenage girl's slumber party they would be trying to scare each other with 'Whitechapel's Smiling Hitchhiker' legend.
Laura was killed on her way to a Halloween dance. Some say it was her boyfriend, Chase, who blew town a few months after her death. Others think it was her chauffeur who is always someone different depending on the generation. Most think it was some pervert who saw something he liked and wanted it.
The last one repulsed Benny the most. To think of what his sister had to go through in her last moments was bad enough but to think some low-life scum put his hands on her… it was enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
Everyone says she never stayed dead. That she haunts the darkened stretch of highway that connected Whitechapel with varying other towns in Ontario. Benny had never been brave enough to go back but his mother kept going on about how she felt 'presences' and saw fleeting images of Laura out the corner of her eye.
People called her 'the Smiling Hitchhiker' because if you were very "lucky" you could catch her in your car headlights trying to hitch a ride back to Whitechapel, her sad smile illuminating her pale face and her deeper red one staining her angel wings crimson.

Now Benny was a vampire, he could finally figure out what happened to Laura, ghost or not. Whatever killed her was not human. That was certain. But then again, it didn't seem like a vampire kill either. Vampires tended to be more savage and less precise, into ripping and tearing and stabbing but most of all, they weren't sloppy. They made sure bodies were properly disposed of or at the very least did something to throw the trail. It could have been a ghost but if it had been a weak one, all they could have done was frighten Laura and a poltergeist were so full of rage that they would have torn Laura limb from limb, same with a werewolf. No, this was something different.
Benny heard the front door open with a resounding click. Human ears wouldn't have noticed it but it made Benny's hairs stand on end. It was too early to be his mom or his dad. The floorboards normally creaked under weight of a person but they didn't make a sound. Benny could sense if it was a vampire and hear if it was human. So what the hell was it?
A low growl sounded just outside his door. Strangely it was mixed with confidence and had a taunting tone. Like it was daring Benny to attack whatever it was. Benny tenderly grabbed the handle and twisted, he shut the door behind himself to avoid it trying to pull a cheap B-movie line scare by slamming it shut.
But – in true horror movie style - when Benny reached the hallway he saw no sign of disturbance. He didn't drop his guard. Benny had learned to trust his instincts and right now the constricting feeling in his gut was tightening. Benny moved through each room silent as the wind whipping through the night. He decided not to let his presence known and give away his position, anyone else might try to make as much noise as possible and turn every light on to frighten away scary things but generally that didn't work. It just made the game more interesting and thrilling.
Finally it came to the bathroom, at the other end of the hall. This would be nerve racking even for a creature of the night. Having to walk along the darkened corridor, pass each ominous door until he was face to face with the entrance to hell.
Benny allowed his hand to reach out for the knob, it creaked under his grip and he resisted the urge to bolt the other way. He was a vampire for chrissake! Benny pulled with a roar to find….

…. Black shadows in an empty bathroom. He switched the light on and swished his head from side to side rapidly searching for the invisible intruder. Benny sighed and shook his head at himself just as he caught a glimpse of an inky eyed wolf in the bathroom mirror.

The beast snarled before he could turn and threw him down the stairs like a rag-doll. Benny felt his skull smash against each step, each crack somehow managing to sound louder than the other – as if they were trying to outdo each other – before landing at the bottom of the steps. He way there for a second staring up at the vicious hellhound. Because it was truly something out of the pits of Hades. It was at least three times bigger than a normal wolf with thick ebony fur and equally as dark eyes, it had rows and rows of jagged teeth drooling with thick, mucus-y saliva that hit the floor like a tap with a constant drip, drip, drip. Its claws made a rapping sound against the laminate flooring before it dragged its awful nails along Benny's floor, purposefully damaging it and looking down at him triumphantly.
Benny leaped into a crouch and snarled. Then the wolf was gone… just, gone. Disappearing in a blur until it was completely invisible. Benny looked around panicked. Was it gone?
Pain soared through his thigh. He stared down in disbelief and fury at the wolf clamped around his leg. It pulled and muscle ripped. Blood and gore squirted up onto Benny's face momentarily blinding him. He fell on his ass. The thing released and tried to squeeze those death jaws on his arm. The disease ridden fangs scrapped his fingers as it missed by an inch. Fuck. Benny glanced down at his leg and almost passed out. He could see white slithers of bone beneath the shredded ligaments.
The hell-beast tried to grab him again but Benny was ready this time. With his one good leg, he booted it in the face. Blood splayed from the hound's mouth and a tooth flew onto the floorboard. Benny smiled. The wolf rounded on him. A deafening crack sounded. Something connected with the things shoulder and smoke began to wheeze off it. It screeched like a banshee. A man wielding a sawed-off shotgun entered the room through the door that he'd slammed off his hinges. He kept firing and eventually the wolf disappeared in a burst of flame.
"Eli," whispered Benny breathlessly as the rest of his leg healed. It now left nothing off the encounter apart from clothes drowning in blood.
The lean man didn't even look at him. Something passed behind those oceanic eyes. Something that terrified Benny more than anything he'd ever encountered. Behind the calm, collected demeanor of a century maybe even millennia old vampire was something stronger than just worry. It was fear. The blond headed man, who looked around thirty but was probably staggeringly older, threw him an elegant dagger which Benny caught effortlessly. "We need to talk."