Sonny Didn't Lock The Back Door

Sonny opened the fridge, searching for a quick fix for his midnight hunger pangs. Lately, he’d been finding himself in this position quite often; he’d be awake, in bed at 11:55pm, with an angry, empty pit of a stomach, and always ended up looking for solace in the fridge. He pulled out the crisp drawer, picked out a cucumber and rubbed it clean on his shirt. From the first bite, it was unusually dry and sourly tasteless. It didn’t really hit the spot for Sonny. There’d always be that part of him that craved a cut of bloody beef. The leech blood in him, perhaps...

Over 3 months ago, Sonny had offered a decent portion of his blood to Mr Randolph, the malevolent leader of the vampire tribe that ran the city’s supernatural underground. The reason Sonny had agreed to something so obviously degrading was that Mr Randolph was holding Sonny’s father hostage, and Sonny’s blood the perfect addition to Mr Randolph’s exclusive Blood Tie collection. This whole ordeal left Sonny with two deep, red gouges in his left shoulder blade, and a regular hankering for rare steak. Extremely rare steak.

Having munched his way through the cucumber, Sonny decided it would be to just go back to bed and try to force himself into sleep. As he got to the foot of the stairs, he heard a dull thud outside his back door. He thought maybe it was the neighbour’s pet snake again.

Thud. It came again, followed closely by a much louder thud, and a heavy clacking of thick heels. The weight of the footsteps sounded extremely familiar, but Sonny didn’t want his guess to be right. That would be a sure cause for panic.

Mischievous giggles preceded the slow turning of the knob. “Shit!” Sonny whispered. After all he’d already been through with Mr Randolph, Sonny still hadn’t learnt to lock the back door at night, and now, he’d left himself completely open to an almost certain death. Not that a locked door would really deter Mr Randolph. He made a split decision to stand his ground. On the off chance that Mr Randolph was only here for a chat, Sonny would end up feeling awfully stupid if he’d decided to make a run for it. The door creaked open, as though the hinges were held together by the tension in the room.

Mr Randolph stood hunched in the open door way, his long, silken hair billowing around his face like thick, black smoke. His eyes resembled glazed rust, and teemed with power. The pixie minions kneeled at his sides, ripping and pulling at their own clothes in avid anticipation, their magenta eyes swirling brightly. The whole sight was quite overwhelming, but just as Sonny took a step back, Mr Randolph lunged at him, snarling in monstrous hunger, knocking Sonny into the mouldy floorboards.

Sonny was at a loss. What was one to do in a situation of sudden death, with no other option? His mind strained for another solution in the few short seconds before Mr Randolph’s mouth was upon his neck. It wasn’t a needle-like stab, as was the case before, but an entire section of flesh being stretched and torn from his body. Sonny shut his eyes tight, choking on his scream. The air around him seemed to gush by the gaping wound, making the pain just that little bit more unbearable. Mr Randolph pulled back from Sonny’s neck, gulped down the separate piece of flesh, and licked his lips.
“Sonny,” he growled, “I’m afraid you really are mine this time.” He chuckled to himself and dove back into Sonny’s neck. The minions squealed in frantic glee. Sonny’s eyes burst open to black, red and nothingness.