Hunting Death

Chapter 17

They flirted all night. He called himself Kenny, and she told him her name was Amanda. She was pretty, but not in the traditional sense, her nose a bit big for her face, her eyes a little too small, and her hair a dull brown.

But she seemed funny. He liked that. He also liked the direction their conversation headed. Amanda admitted to being lonely, no boyfriends for the last few years, she said she worked a lot as a sales representative but since she worked from home most days this happened to be the first time in months that she'd been out. A neighbor invited her to the bar, but after a few drinks decided to leave early.

Amanda didn't want to go home though, she only lived a couple of blocks up from the bar, a tiny studio apartment she told him, that she shared with her cat.

She was exactly the type of woman he looked for. Low self-esteem, she lived alone and worked from home. No real friends or family in the area. Nobody to miss her, at least for a couple of days.

With his baseball cap pulled low, and his contacts in to hide the color of his eyes, Keith readily accepted Amanda's invitation to go back to her place. That's what he loved most about New York City, the women were always so accommodating. And even more reluctant to report things to the police.

They sat on Amanda's futon for a bit, laughing and joking as they had at the bar, then he leaned forward, kissing her lightly, testing her receptiveness. Amanda smiled, she laughed, and she responded. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been with a man, and certainly not one as good looking as him.

Keith kissed her passionately, and he imagined kissing Madison, his lips gentle yet frantic as they interlocked with hers. He laid her down, kissing the side of her mouth, then trailing his lips across her face and down her neck before biting into her carotid artery.

Amanda moaned, her mind slipping into unconsciousness as her body convulsed with the orgasm that spread through her like a wildfire. She should have been afraid, she should have screamed for help, for through the pleasure, she noticed the agonizing pain of her lifeblood falling away.

But no sound escaped her, even her moans subsided, her eyes rolled back into her head, and her thoughts became muddled. Her body wouldn't move, her limbs refused to respond, even as the last quake of ecstasy rolled through her, she felt nothing. She went limp, her muscles lax as he continued to take his fill.

Keith pulled away once her heartbeat slowed to less than sixty beats per minute knowing that if he took anymore he'd kill her. He wiped the blood from his face, licking the last of it from his hands and the side of her neck before pulling a pocket knife out and cutting a small strip in his finger. He opened her mouth and squeezed the wound, letting blood slide down her throat. Then he filled a glass of water in her kitchen and forced her to drink it, making sure she consumed his blood while rinsing out her mouth in the process.

Satisfied that his blood had begun to take effect, and she wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, he undressed Amanda, putting her in a floor-length nightgown he'd found hanging over the shower curtain rod in the bathroom. Then he laid her gently on the futon before pulling a small medical kit out of his back pocket.

He used a cloth soaked in peroxide to wipe her face and neck, then he took out a syringe filled with a special concoction he'd created to aid in the healing process. The teeth marks on her neck were small, and her blood began to clot, but they would still scab, and he didn't want to leave anything to chance.

His blood in her system would ensure she slept long enough for the serum to work its magic, and in a couple of days, when she finally woke up, she wouldn't remember a thing.