A blonde teen perched on the roof a local candle shop, snacking on a pumpkin cookie. He liked pumpkin cookies--it was a shame they only sold them around Halloween. That was one of the many reasons he enjoyed the holiday, others being the free candy and, more importantly, that he didn't feel like quite as much of a freak of nature as he usually did.

He finished off the cookie, crawled to the edge of the roof, and peered over it.

It was about one in the morning, and very few people were roaming the streets at this time. However, he knew that the local band playing at the bar down the street would be finishing up soon, and the bouncers would begin clearing the place of patrons for the evening. The biggest drunks would be the last ones out the door, after having been told rather forcefully that last call had been an hour ago and that they didn’t have to go home, but they couldn’t stay there. He had the distinct feeling that the person he was waiting for would be the absolute last one out, after a call to the police had been threatened—he seemed fairly consistent about that. He was also fairly sure the man would never see him coming.

The boy didn't much like the taste of drunk people, really. The alcohol in their blood put him in a semi-intoxicated state. Luckily, there weren’t many cops in Ariesville, so a half-drunk teenager would likely go unnoticed.

Finally, the portion of the crowd who were still somewhat sober filed out of the bar, got in their cars, and left. Soon after, the stragglers began stumbling out, laughing loudly at something that was undoubtedly not that funny. He waited for the last one, who was practically shoved out by security, and yelling something rude and barely coherent back at them.

The boy climbed down from the roof using the same trellis he'd used to climb up. He stepped quietly around the back of the building, and followed the street down a bit farther to where the intoxicated man was shambling along.

He slid behind a dumpster, waiting for the alcoholic--a middle aged man with a beard and a cowboy hat--to come by. As he crossed in front of the dumpster, the boy leapt out, tackling the drunk to the ground. The man's head hit first, a sharp crack splitting the air—as well as his skull.

Kody smiled. This was convenient.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours later, Kody strolled down the street, his backpack heavy with plastic water bottles, all filled to the brims with a thick red liquid. He figured it should last him a few weeks. The fact that the drunk man had died as soon as his head hit the ground had made it fairly simple to collect his blood for later—he wasn’t using it anymore, after all.

Finally making it to the run-down apartment he’d been calling a home since he'd moved to Ariesville, Kody unlocked the door and climbed the stairs, skipping the ones that creaked the worst. He'd heard that these apartments had been relatively nice at one time, but since they changed owners, they'd slowly fallen into disrepair. On the upside, the cost of rent had also been driven down, and the complex was now home to the poor and the pathetic--drug addicts, alcoholics, and those who no longer had any ambitions of living a meaningful life--those, and one parentless eighteen-year-old.

Taking the final step, Kody wandered into his nearly bare living room, slumping down on the only piece of furniture there. The couch seemed out of place, being rather nice in comparison to the drab, dusty apartment. It was one of the few pieces of furniture that he had kept from his old house. The couch, his bed, and a cabinet or two were the only parts of the old home that remained in his possession. The rest had been sold in an attempt to be able to support himself in Ariesville until he could procure a job, which really needed to start working on. He was lucky that he had turned eighteen shortly before the move--they tended not to let minors rent apartments. He was also lucky that East Ariesville was a compact enough town that he could walk anywhere he needed to go, allowing him to sell the car he had driven there in once he was settled in.

Settling himself back on the slightly worn, but still comfortable suede leather couch, Kody grabbed one of the bottles out of the backpack, twisted the cap off, and drank the entire thing in one go. He sighed contentedly, wiping his mouth with the back of his shirt sleeve. That had hit the spot. It was even still a little warm. He smiled dumbly as the alcohol in the man's blood began to settle in, making him feel just a bit light headed. He wondered idly if it was possible to become an alcoholic from drinking too much blood with alcohol in it. Unfortunately, he didn't have anyone to ask. To his knowledge, he was the only one of his kind around.

After all, vampires had never been what one would call common.