"When is a monster not a monster?

Oh, when you love it."

- "Start Here", Caitlyn Siehl.

In the first few months, when it was close to dawn and he was very tired, Owen had wondered who he might have been. What would this older, other-Owen have thought about who he was now? About what he was now? Would he have been impressed, to see himself no longer pushed around by bullies? With a girlfriend? Or would he be appalled at the bloodshed, at how many he'd killed? Sometimes, Owen had almost felt bad that he didn't feel bad about the killing. It came so easily.

But, that had been only in the first months, only when he was very tired, and then only sometimes. He needed only to see Abby, to see her smile, to hear her laugh, feel their shared existence, and the feeling - his doubts and fears - would dissipate.

May 17, 1991
New York City

The air was dense with the scents of city life - gasoline and humanity. The buildings towered over all, office towers and apartment high-rises, and the streets were crowded with people - a younger crowd, twenty-somethings heading to parties and bars on this warm Friday night. They may as well have been old men and women compared to the two children who passed through their midst, barely noticed.

Abby walked along the sidewalk, Owen close by her side, almost jogging to keep up with her pace. They'd been searching for what felt like hours after getting off the train. It had been surprisingly difficult to find an apartment that had people to invite them in. The city had so many people and so many apartments, yet, when they'd waited outside for what felt like ages, no one had entered or left. They repeated the process again and again. They'd had no luck.

But now Abby had her eyes set on a particular building - she'd spotted it when they turned the corner onto this new street. It was a larger, older building, its stone and brick exterior stained with time and neglect. There were young couples and the occasional family going in and out of its doors with some regularity, even at this late hour.

In a big city, neighbors ignore all kinds of noises. No one even notices dead bodies until they start to rot, and we can get rid of them before that easily. Owen had told her this before, when she was still getting used to life without someone who could easily invite her in. It was great to see the warmth in his eyes as he talked, the excitement. His advice sounded pretty good, too, and so far it had usually borne out. Abby looked back and made sure she hadn't left him too far behind.

"Hurry up, slow poke!" She turned and grinned at him. He gave her an exaggerated mock-frown, and she stuck her tongue out at him in response. It was fun teasing him - that was something she'd missed with Thomas as he'd grown older and quieter.

As she reached the building, she moved to the side and stood by its brick walls, out of the way. She looked back again, and waited a second or two as Owen caught up. He dodged the crowd, weaving between groups and pairs as he went against the flow of people, trying not to bump others with his backpack. When he reached Abby, he joined her standing by the wall next to the door.

They only had to wait a few more moments for their way in to present itself. The doors opened, and a man and a girl began to walk onto the street. They were dressed nicely for a night out.

"Excuse me, we live here. Can we come in?" Owen asked, unprompted. The couple had just barely taken a step outside. The man's hand was still on the door, holding it open for the woman half a step behind him.

"Yeah, sure." The man's response was automatic and inattentive. He didn't even seem to really register their presence. He was looking to the street for a passing taxi to hail, the girl's arm around his waist, her attention on him.

As the couple walked off, Owen grabbed the door before it swung shut and held it open for Abby. A warm sensation welled in her heart. Owen had come a long way from the timid boy he'd been before, but his sweetness remained. She smiled at him, and he blushed and smiled back.

On the inside, it was clear the building had once been nice. The lobby floor was stained maroon carpet, its walls white plaster and plaid wallpaper. A couple worn couches and tarnished wooden tables decorated the space. Fluorescent lights hung above the pair, bathing them in a dull yellow-green light. The air smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and weakly of perfume.

Owen looked around for a moment, then spotted an adjacent room with the tenants' mailboxes. He made a beeline for the entrance, and Abby followed close after.

"How are we gonna pick?" Abby looked around at the lobby. They walked at a brisk pace. Another couple passed them by, leaving snippets of conversation and the fruit-scent of perfume and cologne in their wake.

"Well, we'd want someone alone, so we gotta look for ones with only one name on the mailbox," Owen said. "'Cause, dealing with two people would be tougher."

It made sense. She took in her surroundings, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be suspicious of them. The world, self-concerned, passed them by. She relaxed.

The mailroom was no less worn down than the lobby. Its floor was stained tile. Rows of metal boxes filled the room, illuminated by that same dull light. Owen was methodically reading through the nametags on the fronts of the boxes. Abby stood back and watched as he went from mailbox to mailbox.

"Look, this one looks good!" Owen was kneeling down in front of one of the mailboxes. Abby walked over and kneeled down beside him. She read the nametag. Apartment 6J, L. Clarke. Just one name. Promising.

The building had only one elevator, situated at the back of the lobby. It was a ragged-looking thing with stained wood paneling and a dirty linoleum floor. When its doors opened, there were already people within, smelling of alcohol and smoke and talking in loud conversation They paid no mind to the two young children getting on from the lobby. Owen hit the button for the sixth floor.

As they walked off the elevator, Abby and Owen passed by another group of adults. The small crowd, talking amongst themselves, barely spared a glance in the children's direction. The hall was filled with the sounds of conversation and the faint, clashing bass sounds of music.

The pair reached their destination. Apartment 6J. Its door was unremarkable, only distinguished by a tan doormat that lay in front of it. Welcome, it read.

Owen went first. He knocked on the door, a quick three repetitions. It only took a few seconds for the sound of footsteps to approach the door. He stood back, next to Abby.

The door swung open. A woman in a blue t-shirt and gray sweatpants stood at the threshold, door ajar. She looked at the two children standing in front of her and squinted her eyes in confusion.

"Can I help you?" she asked, with the usual mix of hesitation and surprise.

"Excuse me, miss," Owen began, as he often did when it was his turn. "Do you have a phone we can use? My mom's away and we got locked out of our apartment. I wanna call my mom and let her know."

He looked up at the woman, his expression one of innocence and bashful uncertainty.

"It's ok if you don't wanna, we can try asking someone else," Abby added with a slight, shy smile, calibrated to reassure. Through repetition, they'd learned that a bit of seeming-hesitation, an out, helped ease the process. An out encouraged people to let them in. And that was what mattered. The smile on her face didn't compare to the excitement she felt inside. More shelter. More food for them both.

The woman thought for a moment, looking down on the two children. Abby could practically see the gears turning in the woman's head as she weighed the decision.

The woman sighed.

"It's busy out tonight. I wouldn't want you to get hurt," she said, at last. "You can come in. Let me get the phone."

She turned and held the door open for them.

The doorway led into the kitchen, with its worn beige patterned wallpaper, tiled floor, and seafoam-green cabinets. Pots and pans hung from a mount over the counter, near the stove. Sticky notes and reminders were taped to one of the walls over the counter, just near the phone. A short passageway separated the kitchen from the living room and its mud-green carpet and assortment of furniture. Across from the living room, a hallway.

The woman shut the door behind the two children, who followed close behind her. She turned from them, and began walking toward the telephone. Owen licked his lips.

She didn't have the chance to scream.

Abby let Owen feed first. It hadn't been so long since they'd last eaten, and with effort borne from experience, she was able to control herself enough to keep watch as he fed. Owen, however, was lost in a frenzy. His bodyweight pinned the woman down as he tore into her neck and shoulder. Blood spilled onto the tile, and it was all Abby could do to restrain herself from licking it up.

The woman had hit her head on the counter when Owen tackled her, knocking her unconscious. Still, Abby covered the woman's mouth and nose out of caution, keeping the woman's head pressed against the floor.

After a few moments, the woman's body slackened with blood loss. The thick scent of copper filled the air.

Owen felt the blood flow into him. He felt it flow through his stomach, through his heart, into his veins. Its presence calmed the sensation of need, eased the tension in his limbs. Little by little, the darkness faded from the edges of his vision. His body had weight again. He felt the floor beneath him and a familiar, sticky warmth coating his hands and dripping down his neck. He felt Abby just beside him, holding the woman's head down, keeping it steady and the noises to a minimum, just like he'd done for her so many times.

A few moments more, a little more blood, and Owen's vision was back in full. He saw, truly saw, the woman, lying face up on the floor. Saw the ragged, torn flesh of her neck. For a moment, the woman was his mom, laying there as if on the couch, as if from one of her drinking binges. Where the woman's face was, he imagined his mom's. Staring up at him, empty of life. He imagined her mouth slightly parted, as if in shock.

Where is the guilt?

This imagining carried no weight, he realized. It was an image without an emotion, like a picture of grass or some design on a table. It was just something that had happened, that's all. Would he even have cared if it had been his mom? For an instant, again, he tried to imagine. He felt nothing.

He kept drinking. His thirst had ebbed, but was not yet sated.

Abby sensed something had changed in the apartment. She looked up, but kept her hands over the woman's mouth. There was the sound of bare feet on tile, a gasp. Abby turned and looked toward the archway where the kitchen met the living room. Owen kept drinking.

Standing there, in the passageway, was a brown-haired girl, a smattering of freckles covering her face. She was about their age, maybe, and dressed in pink PJs. She was covering her mouth in shock, eyes wide. There was a gurgling sound as air escaped the woman's lungs.

At the sight of the girl, Abby felt the hunger coming out. Its need, its thirst, poured through her veins and muscles from her core into her limbs. She let it break free of her control. Her teeth and eyes were quickly beginning to change. Abby snarled at the stranger, this new prey.

A high-pitched sound escaped the girl's mouth - an animal squeal of fear. Abby growled at the noise, her voice unnaturally deep. The girl turned and ran, scrambling, almost tripping over herself to escape. Abby leapt up from the woman and chased after the girl, pushing herself off the walls of the passageway and into the living room. The girl had vanished, hidden herself away somewhere. But she was close. Abby growled in frustration and in hunger. She passed through the living room, moving toward the short hallway that sat opposite the kitchen archway.

She sniffed at the air.

Emma Clarke hid in the hallway closet, behind the door she'd hastily shut, huddled beneath some jackets. She was pressed as far into the corner as she could force herself. She wedged herself into the drywall, wishing she could just melt into the wall itself, phase through it to safety. She prayed it was enough to hide her. Her heart was pounding. What she'd seen, what she'd heard - it seemed unreal.

This couldn't be real.

This couldn't be real. Even now she wasn't sure of what she'd seen. It had become a blur. Maybe it wasn't real. Maybe she would wake up from her dream - because it must be a dream, a nightmare - and she'd smell breakfast ready on the stove. She would get out of bed, and make her way to the kitchen, rubbing the sleep and tears from her eyes. She'd hug her mom, and tell her, eyes rimmed red, about her awful nightmare. It would be ok, and she would be amidst the scent of eggs and breakfast and the promise of the weekend.

But it wasn't the smell of eggs and bacon that hung in the air. And you couldn't smell in dreams, could you?

Emma huddled in the dark, gripping the sleeve of a wool jacket, afraid to let go. It was all that kept her grounded, that connected her to reality. She had never felt fear like this before. She hadn't even realized that it was possible to be this afraid and still live, to not drop dead from the weight of fear. The edges of her vision darkened. She felt a great pressure in her head - an unbearable pressure. She gripped the jacket sleeve tighter.

There was silence.

There was something.

A sound. Something approaching. Something that walked with rapid, wet, sticky footsteps. Something that smelled off, that smelled of copper and grave-dirt and something rotten. The sound - the something - grew closer and closer. Something, in a deep, low voice, growled.

Something had found her.

Emma's fingers were white now, she was gripping the sleeve so hard. Something wet and warm ran down her leg. There was a shadow just outside the closet, in the hallway.

Sharp claws like distorted fingers slid through the gap between the closet door and the wall. Another low growl, a drawn-out snarl, came from the hallway.

Now hot tears ran down Emma's cheeks. Her vision blurred. She couldn't take her eyes off the door as it began to slide open, bit by bit. She heard a small keening noise, and after a moment realized it was coming from herself. The gap in the door widened. Light poured in from the hallway. Emma blinked away the tears. She opened her eyes and saw what was in front of her.

It was the face of a monster. Backlit by the light, its features were bathed in shadows.

It almost looks like a girl. Emma's clarity of thought surprised herself. Time slowed to a standstill.

Maybe it once even was a girl. But now - now it was something else. The face was horror. Long, blonde hair framed pale, splotchy skin, patterned here and there with veins. Long, blonde hair framed eyes with yellowed pupils rimmed in black, staring at her with the intensity and hostility of a true predator. The mouth was horror. Its grin revealed yellowed teeth, misshapen, sharpened, and a too-long tongue.

The monster growled.

In Emma's slowed time, she was able to see every movement the monster made. Its fingers-turned-claws scraped against the closet wall. They were so, so sharp. Its feet left sticky red residue on the hallway floor as it came closer. It must have been moving so fast, with such hungry eagerness, but Emma took in every detail with far too much clarity.

The smell was overwhelming now, and it was the smell of dead things and graves and her mother's blood. The monster loomed over her. It was so close now, so terribly, horribly close.

Emma's scream died in her throat.

Abby was crouched over the girl's corpse, finishing up, when she heard Owen approach her. The girl's head was twisted at an awkward angle, eyes open and staring sightlessly at the flesh torn out of her neck and shoulder.

Abby looked up at the sound of Owen's footsteps, wiping the blood from her chin as she turned. Owen's mouth was covered in a faint red smear, and the collar of his t-shirt was wet. His hands were in his pockets. He was looking at the girl with an expression like unease.

"There should've just been one…" He shifted his weight from one foot to another as he spoke quietly, looking from Abby to the girl. "I didn't…"

Abby felt herself taking a breath.

"I had to. We had to."

Her voice was barely above a whisper. There was silence. What else could she say? She had to. There wasn't a choice. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't Owen's fault. The girl had been there. She had seen them. She had screamed.

"She would've known. She would've screamed," Abby continued. She wiped more of the blood from her mouth, then wiped her hands on her sweatshirt. Owen was quiet. He was looking down toward his feet. Abby wished she knew what to say.

It's not our fault.

It wasn't that she didn't feel bad about killing the girl. She wasn't a monster, just someone who needed blood to live. Like Owen.

And after all, wasn't it the killing that was making her feel something now? Like a lump in her chest, maybe. Had she felt like that before Owen mentioned the girl? Was there the sensation of something beginning to well in the corners of her eyes? She couldn't really tell. She didn't think so. She wiped her mouth again. It wasn't her fault or Owen's fault.

It's not our fault. It's hers. For being there.

The apartment's walls thumped rhythmically with the bass of music layered over muffled conversations. In that moment, it felt like the beating of a great heart.

Owen stood there, in the apartment hallway with its greenish-yellow light. He felt like… like what? Was it just his imagination that he had felt something? He saw Abby, looking back at him with concern. He looked back at the girl's body.

Tucked away in the corner, obscured by the hanging jackets, the dead girl looked like just another body. Like one of the hundreds he'd seen before. It looked just like a grown-up's corpse, or even really just a lump of bloody clothing, if you ignored her face. Was this really so different from what they'd done so many times? Did it feel different?

No.

No, it didn't.

If the girl had run, if she had gotten away - jumped out a window or ran through the door into the hallway or screamed, really truly screamed - that would've been it. They would've been goners. It would've been over.

Maybe.

But wasn't that enough? Wasn't maybe too much of a risk? The girl would've grown up without parents anyway. She would've been alone. Put into an orphanage. It was over for her now. It had been quick. Abby had made it quick. And besides, he could've lost Abby.

The girl would have identified them. She would have run for help, run to a neighbor. She would have called the police. Sketches of their faces would have been plastered everywhere, like the killers he'd seen in the TV news reports and the newspapers. The police would have been looking for them. Police cars patrolling the roads, policemen knocking at every door.

He could've lost Abby.

The thought turned his stomach into a void, filled it with a deeper dread than any he'd known before. His head felt light. The idea began to make the edges of his eyes wet.

It's not our fault.

Abby saw Owen beginning to nod slowly. The lump in her chest began to recede.

By now, she was standing. She was not more than a foot from Owen. Tears were beginning to well in his eyes, and the sight made her heart drop. She wanted nothing more than to take his pain away, to make him smile again. She reached out and hugged him. She felt his warmth in her arms, pressed up against her. He hugged her back.

"Yeah…"

Owen was talking quietly, not quite to her and not quite to himself. He rested his head on her shoulder. He hugged her tighter. "It's not your fault. We needed to eat. It's her fault. She shouldn't have been there."

"Yeah," she said quietly, eyes closed. "She shouldn't have been there."

The weight lifted from her heart. After all, she wasn't a monster. Owen wasn't a monster, either. They just needed blood to live.

She wondered where they'd put the bodies.

Not thirty minutes later, Abby was sitting next to Owen on the ratty couch in the apartment living room, cuddled up against him. His hair smelled of flowery shampoo after the shower. Hers was still a little wet.

They'd both changed into clean sets of clothing, fresh t-shirts and shorts taken from their backpacks or scavenged from the bedrooms' dressers. Their old, bloody clothes lay in a little pile next to the bathroom door, just a little ways down the hall from the closet. They'd laid a plastic trash bag under it to keep any liquids from seeping into the floor and, potentially, the apartments below. They could wash the clothes later.

Abby had settled on a tape of Tales from the Darkside, and after some deliberation they'd decided to watch an episode titled "My Ghostwriter - The Vampire," which promised ghosts and vampires, or maybe vampire writers who were ghosts. Owen hadn't been sure if he wanted to watch this episode at first, but Abby had prevailed. It was funny, after all, to see what a TV vampire was like, even if the rest of the episode was a little boring and she never did see a ghost.

As the music played and the screen faded to black, Owen spoke.

"I get to pick the next episode," he said. "This one was… ok… I guess."

"Yeah, I thought it was going to be cooler," she agreed. Vampire aside, it had been a disappointing episode, overall. She held his hand in her lap and leaned against his arm. He smiled at her, then stood and walked to the VHS player that sat under the TV.

He hit rewind until it reached the first episode, the one they'd skipped. The title promised something about a circus. He hit play. On the TV, there were the sounds of violin music, and a man in a coat and hat stood chuckling outside a circus sign.

Owen returned to the couch. He sat down and took her hand in his. Abby felt his weight as he cuddled against her. It was warm and comforting. Her heart fluttered. The man on the TV walked toward the circus entrance as the music continued. She couldn't wait to see what happened next - this episode couldn't be more boring than the last.

In the apartment's main bedroom, past the hallway closet and its closed door, two bulky black trash bags sat on the bed. A pale, lifeless arm stuck partially out of one, hanging loosely off the side.

Author's Note

This about rounds off all the story ideas I have for Let Me In, but who knows what the future holds. I wanted this to be something of a character study for Abby and Owen, to examine their relationship and how they process and understand the nature of their existences given the juxtaposition of their immaturity, something like innocence, and the fact that they kill weekly. It was also an opportunity to pull back the curtain, so to speak, on their true natures.

I'm surprised how much I was able to differentiate this from the first story in the collection. I was fairly concerned it would end up being a rehash, but then I realized I could use it to explore a new angle.

Full disclosure - this actually took only about three hours for the initial draft, and then about seven more hours for edits. I was suffering from George RR Martin syndrome for a bit and let life get in the way. As you may have noticed in this collection, I've been trying out variations on tone, description, tense, and point of view characters to see what works. Critique and commentary are very appreciated.