It was artistic, he reminded himself, as he snapped the picture. The flash reminded him of lightning, and Conrad suddenly wished it were raining. It'd go well with his somber mood; might even help him feel the slightest bit of remorse as he stared down at the lifeless corpse set peacefully before him.

It was a sick idea, but it was for 'artistic' purposes; he had to keep telling himself that, lest he crack under the immense guilt. It wasn't like he'd wanted to do this; it was simply that he had been left with no other choice.

It was all because he was a vampire, and had to bite people (even though he'd truly, really, rather not). The idea of robbing someone of their life was just so repulsive, he couldn't bring himself to do it. To make his cruel circle of life continue, he had to kill to eat, and that was not ok. He needed an excuse to make it alright for him, something that wouldn't leave him feeling as dirty and low as he never imagined he could feel. The only thing he could think of to make killing someone somewhat tolerable was to indulge in his artfag ways and make it seem artistic. It had to be for art. It justified his need for blood and the need to kill people in order to keep himself fed. Those reasons were precisely what he told himself each and everyday with every new photograph he snapped.

'A man receives a photo of his girlfriend everyday in the mail…so that he can keep track of her body's decomposition.'

Conrad had found the book in Worth's office. He was half-surprised that Worth read at all, let alone owned any books, but it all made sense when he'd read the back sample piece. Of course the only thing Worth would've read or owned would be a sick, twisted piece of sci-fi horror literature.

The book was a composition of a bunch of short stories from a Japanese horror writer, and it didn't take Conrad long to throw down the book with a scowl of disgust. Honestly, it took some sick people to read this and enjoy it, but it took an even sicker mind to actually have written it and let it be exposed to the world, and a sick person Conrad was not. He hated those types of novels; hated the whole horror genre in general. He just couldn't fathom how messed up a person had to be to actually enjoy that type of thing.

He supposed that made him a hypocrite.

'Artistic, this is artistic.'

It was the only excuse he could use to justify what he'd done. He'd bitten and killed that poor girl because he couldn't stomach the idea of going to Worth's and having have to deal with that…grungy messed up sonuvabitch called doctor. And she'd paid the price unknowingly, and the least he could do was make her death somewhat meaningful. It wasn't her fault he'd feasted on her; she'd just been in the wrong spot at the wrong time, and he simply couldn't control himself any longer.

What was he supposed to have done? He couldn't have very well just left the body laying around for some unsuspecting lug to stumble upon. Who knew what kinds of sick things could be done to her defenseless body? Not only that, but his own guilty conscience prevented him from just leaving her drained corpse in the filthy alley he'd eaten her in. She deserved better than that; a lot better than that. She deserved to still be alive.

So where was he supposed to take her? Not to his condo, for surely as her body began to decompose it would start to rot and smell something awful; probably worse than Hanna did. And hers would be a smell others would be able to catch wind of, and when questions were asked, how was he to respond? 'Oh, that's just the body I have in the back; don't mind it, I'll take care of it soon.' He couldn't…ugh. What was he supposed to do? What did other vampires do? Conrad didn't know, and as he stood fretting in the alley, that's when the story he'd read in Worth's office crept back into his mind.

The man in the story had killed the woman and left her in an abandoned cabin in some wayward out of the way place. Surely in a city as dumpy as this, there were bound to be a building or two that was devoid of use. And so he'd scampered off into the night with her body in tow, searching for a place not even suitable for a homeless squatter, hoping against all hopes he wouldn't be caught.

Luckily for him he'd found an unused warehouse not too far from where he'd killed her, and settled for leaving her corpse there. He laid her down gently, wondering if he should arrange her into a more suitable pose, then scolded himself for thinking about it. He'd already killed her; he shouldn't mess around with her body like that. Disrespectful.

Now that he'd found a secure, hidden place to lay her, what should he do now? Just…leave? And never think about it again? If he ignored it, it was like it'd never happened. But how could he? Conrad, the stupid idiot he was, had gone through her purse, had seen the pictures of her with her friends, family, and loving boyfriend. What would they think when she didn't come home? Would they be worried? Surely they would be, they looked the type to care about her a great deal.

But they'd never know what happened to her, for there was no way in hell Conrad was going to turn himself in. He'd just have to settle with them never knowing if she'd been murdered (which she had), or had run away, or having had some other unfathomable misdeed inflicted upon her. They'd worry and fret and cry, forever worrying and wondering what on earth happened to their lovely daughter/sister/lover, and Conrad just couldn't deal with that. Could anyone, in his or her right mind, just ignore all that? You'd have to be perfectly sick to-

Sick.

Sick minds with sick ideas that made sick stories.

It made sense. It was artistic (he could study and see how the body decomposed to help perfect his art, and if somebody had written about sick shit like this, well. Even writing was considered an art form, so really, it was artistic.), and at the same time her family/friends/boyfriend wouldn't have to worry. They'd have conclusive evidence; their minds wouldn't run rampant with such tragic imaginings of what could be happening to their poor lost relation.

He'd do exactly as the man in the story had done; he'd take a picture of her dead, rotting body and send it to them in the mail everyday until she was nothing but a bag of bones. Her address was easy to obtain (it was astounding how much personal information girls carried around with them in their purses), so it wasn't like he'd have to go through a whole lot of trouble to go along with it.

And so he'd set up his camera, positioning it just so for the perfect view so they'd see that she'd not been mutilated in some horrific fashion as she'd died, and taken his first picture. Day after day, he'd snapped a pho and then deposited it in their mailbox so they could see what had become of their dearly beloved. He didn't know what they thought, and found he really didn't care to know; he didn't need anymore goddamn guilt on his mind.

It was almost relaxing to know that they wouldn't be kept up for days on end wondering, worrying and waiting for something to turn up; this way they could skip through all the speculation and get straight on to the mourning, setting the memory of their dearest to rest so he'd be at ease.

He was sick, twisted, and maybe even deranged for doing this, but it was ok. Maybe his mother had been right about him after all, with all her crazy ideas and notions about his psychological stability. The camera clicked, flashed, and he had another lovely picture of the girls body to send home, her once petite, smooth face filled with craters and holes as the worms crawled through her flesh, making roost in her body.

"Smile pretty for the camera now, love."

Wouldn't Worth be proud.

A/N: Heavily inspired and based on the short story 'Zoo' by Otsuichi.