Apathy is but One Consequence of Monstrosity

Today will be the last time I see Zachary.

Although I had admired his manor frequently in the weeks prior, I first met him only when I delivered him a package requiring a signature. The old, dark house lived in whispers around Martilet; however, the rumors of most interest to me were those regarding its inhabitant.

My coworkers produced almost all of my knowledge of Zachary—hearsay from friends and neighbors. By far the most common trivia claimed he was the figure missing persons glimpsed darting into a dark alley before they disappeared, though the jury was still out on whether he kept them, killed them, or consumed them. Folks maintained that something was deeply wrong with him, regardless. I hadn’t entirely dismissed the notion, being aware of several disappearances in my few short weeks in Martilet, but I’d heard plenty talk of monsters that never bore fruit. Such stories oft spoke more to the town from which they came than the person about whom they speculated.

Zachary had opened the door clad in only a bathrobe when we first met, claiming he had been lazing about in his undergarments and opted to present himself with some decency before his new mailperson. Without direct proof to support his claim, I kept other more intriguing possibilities in mind later that evening as I reflected upon the encounter. What he had undeniably revealed to me, though, was that he’d watched me perhaps just as long as I had him.

A few days later, he called out to me from the wrap-around porch. On the table at which he sat was a wine glass filled with dark red liquid. He inquired about my mode of transportation, to which I replied that I park my vehicle at the end of the street. Then, I simply stood a moment at the end of his drive, as though entranced. He had donned, on that day, the eccentric wear about which I’d been warned. I found it added to his allure. When I next had mail addressed to the manor, I elected to hand-deliver it to the door. He smiled and joked that he would fix the mailbox at his earliest convenience.

Some townsfolk believed that living in a manor by oneself is enough to drive one mad. I shared the sentiment, not because I took him to be lonely—he seemed well-adjusted enough that I found him charming—but because the idea of cleaning that large a house alone nearly drove me mad. If the rumors were true, certainly he kept hostages as maids.

Living in a community that largely believed one to be a monster would drive most to reclusion, but not Zachary. I saw him dining that evening at the same restaurant where my coworkers had invited me to celebrate my first month in Martilet. He sat at a table with two other similarly dressed persons.

We found each other at the bar after our companions left. Rather, I lured him to the bar by sending a beverage to his table, and his friends dispersed shortly after. When I apologized for the disruption, he waved me off and retorted that his only disappointment came from my not delivering it myself. The hours we spent there afterward dispelled any concerns the community might have instilled within me. I could imagine their voices now, telling me that his charisma was a facade used to lure victims, me being his latest. If they’d told me then, though, I’d have been too engrossed in conversation to hear them.

Over the following weeks, I grew intimately familiar with Zachary. It started with encouragement to chat on his porch for a while as I handed him his mail one day. Once that became routine, he suggested I return after my shift to share a glass of wine. It was the first time an offer of his left me uneasy. Nevertheless, I returned in the late afternoon.

One day, not long after, rain began to fall as I parked on his street. I hadn’t thought much of it initially and dutifully donned my branded poncho and an umbrella to protect my bag and the mail I transferred from it into the mailboxes. By some twist of fate, I found myself in a torrential downpour. Just as I opened his perfectly intact mailbox, I heard Zachary shout my name over the rain, inviting me inside to wait it out. I accepted unthinkingly.

The soft patter of dripping water accompanied my entrance into the foyer of his manor. Zachary reached for a lone towel on a side table. Then, he paused in thought, his hesitation so brief that I had hardly a chance to notice, before grabbing it to dry his own face. He knew my schedule, so I hadn’t given his preparation a second thought at the time.

I hung up my poncho, rested my umbrella by the door, and removed my shoes before following him as he beckoned me further into the manor. The heavy rain on the roof seemed to echo around us. We made our way through the first floor and into the living room, where I immediately sat on a couch while he stole away to his wine cellar. Naturally, as anyone would when left alone to listen to a storm in an unfamiliar house, I examined my surroundings. Everything was so clean that I found myself searching for an unseen caretaker. I realized, though, that a man who inherits a manor certainly receives a fortune alongside it; one needn’t abduct servants if one could hire them.

The most modern thing about the home was an impressively large television. Zachary used it for movie nights with his friends, he explained as he returned bearing pinot noir and a pair of etched glasses. I correctly guessed that he was an avid horror fan—his sense of style and interior decorating made it obvious—but he told me he has a soft spot for romance. I laughed and replied that we all do. It was then that he confessed his feelings, correctly conjectured that I felt the same pull, and spoke of aspirations for a long future together.

As Zachary and I grew closer, we became coupled. Sightings of my vehicle parked at his residence late into the evening became frequent town gossip. It was as though everyone had briefly forgotten about the regularly occurring disappearances—myself included, while distracted with courtship. He inducted me into his social groups and fraternized with my coworkers. When people realized that he hadn’t killed me and that I’d broken him out of whatever non-existent shell they’d perceived, he lost his reputation as some mysterious monster, and his humanity was acknowledged. A few people with whom we regularly interacted independently implied that I had leashed or trained him. In a way, I had, but only for the few short weeks before his death.

The Martilet police have questioned me over the past few days. I know how it looks: a newcomer seduces one of the most discussed men in town, who then dies weeks later. They would be insane not to be suspicious. However, with neither cause of death nor motive, the case will run dry.

Their inability to find a motive is simply due to my lack of having one. I hadn’t meant for it to happen. Our mutual fascination made it impossible to resist and doomed us from the start. What’s worse is that I truly cared for him; I loved him. In fact, he may well still be alive if I’d cared any less. The reason for his death would not be revealed by any lab test that currently exists. If it were possible to know, I would.

That first time I saw him on his porch sealed his fate, but it was not until the day of the storm that I condemned him to die. All of it was too fast. Immediately following his confession came a disclosure request; I knew when he inquired that it was not the story of my original creation he desired, but of what had cultivated the powerful entity capable of enchanting him with solely a look across his yard. So, I told him. I told him of pain, risk, and misery. I told him of loneliness, instability, and depression. He reminded me of companionship. He, with knowledge of what was to come at his disposal, begged me to take him under my wing. I told him to wait and he did not argue, but time was useless to dissuade him.

In the following week, I grew mad with power, and he with lust. It was in the throes of passion that my teeth first scraped his shoulder hard enough to draw blood, making my first drink from him all the more delectable. Overwhelmed with emotions, I had to consciously remind myself to exercise caution so as not to drain him completely like my other Martilet victims. I would never have tired of his obedience and sweet blood if only I hadn’t killed him. He was the most adoring lover I’d ever had the pleasure of enthralling.

I suggested we commence with a romance film on the night I began the ritual, intending to soothe him. Instead, he practically vibrated restlessly beside me on the couch throughout its entirety. I sighed as the film concluded and untangled myself from him. He led me to the cellar, where he had obediently set up a cot, buckets, and medical supplies per my instruction earlier that day. I tried to hold his gaze, to get him to understand the weight of his decision, to apologize in advance for the pain he had yet to endure, but he simply kissed me and remained stubbornly attached to my lips until I maneuvered a blade to my carotid artery and forced his mouth to the incision with a bloodied hand. The headrush reminded me why thralls so enjoy their positions as feeders.

I did the same to his throat, albeit with much more precision, then laid him onto the cot. The rushed copulation that followed was not a requirement for the transformation, but I lacked the strength to deny him and took comfort in the fact that his horrific death and subsequent rebirth would be a little less painful with it in his recent memory. If I had known at the time that he would not survive his tryst in the afterlife, I would have rather made love.

It took days. Each time I joined his frail, decomposing form in the cellar or he regained consciousness in my presence, he would tell me he loved me, his voice dry and hoarse from screaming while I hadn’t been there to comfort him. I'd insist that he rest and remind him of the eternity we would have to profess our love after his transformation. Then he’d hiss as I tended to the festering wound on his throat. Pant and sweat as I moved his stiffening muscles. Often, I’d watch in silence as he purged his humanity into one of the buckets beside the head of the cot, then tenderly wipe bile from his chin to offer him dignity.

I worried on the fourth day, but was sure on the fifth that Zachary would not survive. For lack of ability to euthanize him without creating evidence of my deed, I dared not reveal this. I would have drained him then if it would not make me terribly ill, so that he would suffer no longer and I could savor him one last time. I stroked his sweat-soaked hair that night as he fell asleep. I held him until morning, in part to comfort him should he wake and to punish myself should he not.

Perhaps my decision to watch his transformation slowly and painfully fail broke me in some way, as I was briefly grateful when I returned to the cellar after work on the sixth day to find that I had not been there to see his passing. He died alone, just as I had. Only, in his case, it didn’t have to be that way, and, in my case, I’d beaten the reaper.

They found him later that day in the canopy bed upstairs, in which we had fornicated several times before he decided his fate. Rather, before I had condemned him to die.

The funeral lasts longer than I would prefer, but it’s nice nonetheless. I spend the time merely listening to others speak about Zachary from my seat. I wouldn’t know what to say if I could. Nobody would understand. My lack of tears goes largely unnoticed, or perhaps people believe I am in shock.

Once the funeral attendees line up to pass by the casket, the apathy I developed long ago as a survival mechanism fails. There have been and will be others. Yet, never before had I attended the funeral of my failed fledgling. I want nothing more than to rush to him, pull him from the casket, and tell him he can stop pretending. Instead, I quietly face what I’ve done. I should have told him I loved him before his brain had been reduced to something incapable of comprehending it. When I pass by and see Zachary for the last time before I leave Martilet, I tell his corpse that it happened too soon.

In truth, I know not exactly what made him different. But I do know that, next time, there will be no feelings.