Blood trickled down the corner of Isabelle's pallid mouth, the deep red contrasting against her skin in a dreadful way. She had drunk until the now dead girl underneath her was shriveling up in a grotesque matter that made even Isabelle, who was quite experienced after two hundred and three years of murder and bloodshed, feel slightly ill. Isabelle scornfully wiped her chin with an already bloodstained handkerchief, and gently slapped her wrist. Usually she was a clean eater but it seemed that tonight she had made a rather mess of her face. And she had to still catch that other girl… or maybe she'd let her run, screaming with horror, to the carnival. No one would believe what she saw really happened, but hours would pass, then days, and sooner or later, it would become apparent that her friend was indeed dead or hurt. Her parents would go mad with grief and fear for their daughter, but her body would never be found unless someone swam far enough into the ocean, then dived into it about ninety feet. Her body would rot with the fish, just like the ten others she and Michael had taken in the past month. Disposing of the bodies was the easy part; all they needed to do was fly over the ocean until they thought it was deep enough, then drop the stone-laden carcass into the blue abyss.
Over the years they had traveled all around the country, to Canada, and once, for five years, to Australia. The longest time they had ever stayed in one place was twenty years, and that was in Europe during WWI. The travel was necessary to survive and escape much suspicion. If there was much attachment to one particular place they would just come back several years later and stay there until they had their fill. It would have been lonely had it not been that they had each other for company, which changed everything. It changed the way they hunted, it changed where they went, and it changed how their prey reacted to them. What it didn't change, however, was the emotions. The emotions never seemed to leave either of them. If they were angry, they were angry for several years, if they were sad, they would be sad for several years. If they got cocky with their prey, they would be cocky for much too long. Isabelle couldn't say exactly if she missed human emotions, and part of her said that she didn't miss them one bit, but the other side screamed out that it missed it beyond belief. Unlike humans, Isabelle quickly found that love was not a passing emotion; that it stayed and stayed, even if she was in a rage, even if she felt dejected, even if she felt spiteful, so it stayed with her. She felt rather sorry for humans. Their emotions died out so quickly it was almost alarming. Nothing seemed to stay in their hearts for very long, it was all fleeting and fickle. Isabelle did not miss that aspect at all. She didn't miss food, she certainly did not miss menstruating, or urinating or defecating, she didn't miss the daylight, and she didn't miss the notion that she would someday die, she missed absolutely none of that. What she missed… she wasn't really sure of. There would be times where she found herself up half of the day musing over it all.
Isabelle abstractedly dragged the girl's body by the foot down the sandy beach, humming a tune she had heard once. But the tune kept on changing and the tempo would be off the charts one minute but the next it would return to normal. Isabelle hummed when she was remembering incidents, or accidents, or if she was brooding over something Max had said to them once, how there was something about the way he said it she didn't like. Isabelle kept on humming as she picked up large rocks and pulled fishing wire out of her pocket. She even continued to hum absent-mindedly as she tied to the body the heavy rocks. The tune changed yet again as she waved good-bye to the child sinking into the inky water. Isabelle lay down on the air above the water, looking at the moon above her and smiling with content. The moon helped her find her inner sanctuary and lock herself in it…for at least a little while, until reality set in and she sat back up. It was summer here and the sun rose early. Gliding over the water swiftly, she was only a blur to the human eye, but to other vampires or other members of the dead and undead, she was crystal clear. There were no other vampires in Santa Carlo, just Max, David, and herself. She preferred that to having to constantly watch her back whenever she hunted, with the chance that a newly formed vampire might just happen to attack her from behind and steal her kill. She didn't like to feel like a wolf over a deer. It was degrading.
The cave was barren at the time. So far they had only erected the Jim Morrison poster and dragged in the four-poster bed, otherwise, it needed furnishing, very badly. The bed was unnecessary. Neither of them could actually sleep in it, and hadn't been able to since they were turned. Whenever they lay down to sleep, as soon as they woke up they'd find themselves pressed against the ceiling. It was something to do with the carvings, with the wood, with-with- why kid herself, it was because it was symbolic to them of death. That was where they had spent their last night as humans. Their last night as innocents, their last night as mortals, with mortal emotions, with mortal predicaments. It was that one little keepsake that they couldn't bring themselves to burn or to leave behind, it was that one little bad habit of theirs. Like chewing your nails.
Santa Carlo made her feel lonely. Maybe it was the large amounts of humans swarming around and inside of the carnival, or maybe it was the beach landscape, with the dark and lonesome blackness all around it. Max would occasionally pop his head into the cave to check if they were still alive, if they hadn't for some reason tried to maul each other to death, but his visits were random and rare. He was a solitary vampire who disliked undead company but then would go and begin to crave it than tire of it. He was unpredictable in the highest sense. Isabelle trusted him as much as she trusted humans which she let alive. Not at all. Isabelle left the cave almost immediately after she landed softly on the barren rock ground. She felt anxious as well now. She couldn't go to the carnival after a kill, so that left all of the twelve stores she could go around in to find some stuff she could use to cover up the screamingly naked cave walls. So far, she had pocketed almost two hundred dollars in just one week. Humans were getting richer and richer by the century, or maybe they were just becoming more spoiled. Both, probably. There was that store with all the drug paraphernalia, she could always go to that… but at this time of night, she would probably have to walk around drugged humans just to get to the back of the store where they sold the things of REAL interest. Of the African masks, of the snarling gargoyles, and once, just once, she saw a pendant that, after two hundred and twenty years on this earth, made her jaw drop with its beauty. Of course, the next night it was gone, which was to be expected but it still made her disappointed.
After buying several masks, she calmly shoved her way out of the crowd of heroin junkies while diverting her eyes from them and their distant voices of annoyance. She was looking forward now to heading back to the cave. The humans had put her at a sense of ease towards the human race, and made her reaffirm the fact that she was their predator and they were her prey, and unsuspecting prey at that.
She was smiling again by the time she swooped into the cave entrance, but her smile flew from her lips as fast as she had just came.