"HOW WE MEET OUR OWN"

Esme's car windows were down, the wind ripping through her hair. The thing about wind is that it carries scents and sounds. Especially the scent of flesh.

The smell of fresh meat isn't that hard to pick out from the other smells of the corn fields. The state of Kentucky is quite big by American standards.
But to be able to smell a fresh kill?
Esme's nose was no stranger to it and attuned to the specific scent. Her eye twitched. Her nose flared as she breathed in deeply, trying to figure out the way it was coming from.

Around her, it was all farmland, but a town was nearby according to the road sign that she just passed.

That is where the body was. She could feel it.
Her gums throbbed and her teeth ached in a newfound hunger.

Lee was on the floor. Kneeling.
The blood around his mouth tasted saccharine, sweet, like liquorice candies. He licked his lips. He refused to cry. Especially not over the remains of his father's corpse.

Lee was on his knees. Sick to his stomach, but at the same time wanting more.
Of all the times his father beat him, he only cried the first time, and he won't start again now. You see, even in death, his father managed to find ways to torture his son.

His hands were bloody and raw. But most of the dark red covering them was his own.
Lee hated this feeling. This weakness that he felt wrapped around his throat and threatened to choke the tears out of him.

But even stronger than that, there was a betraying feeling of power and satisfaction when he looked at what he had done.
Where was the humanity? The body before him was still his flesh and blood, right?

When had he decided the line between right and wrong was a threshold easily crossed by simple emotions like hunger and anger?

He sighed heavily, the weight of his actions pressing in on his chest. He was relieved. Relieved to be free from the monster in front of him and relieved that his sister was now safe. Kayla was safe. That's what matters.
Lee was just relieved that the torture the siblings endured was finally over. The hands that once beat his younger sister were now cold and lifeless. The cold satisfaction of killing his father made Lee's conflicted heart beat a bit faster with adrenaline.

He was glad he had told Kayla to run and get help while he had distracted his father. Who knows what would have happened if he'd let him go any further? Kayla deserved a better father. And a better brother.

Lee stood up from where he knelt. This wouldn't do.

Lee knew he could get away with the murder. But he didn't want Kayla to have to deal with a brother who was believed to be a murderer. How would she face the other kids at school?
No, Lee would have to leave. It'd be for the best that he dispose of the body and leave his home state of Kentucky for as long as possible.

Lee buried the remains in the deepest possible hole he could dig. It took him 6 hours to bury the body.

He then covered it back up and left his father's truck inside the compactor in the yard. It was crushed, destroying what he knew could be evidence against him.
He may have been only 17, but he could fend for himself.

Lee looked down at his soaked clothes. They were bright crimson.
He realised it was fine.
The blood staining his body was from his injuries. The blood from the gash on his temple dried in his hairline, like a bad dye job.

The shirt he wore was red from the cuts and angry welts all along his arms and torso, where his father had whipped him with his belt while Kayla ran.
And the bite on his arm where his father had bit him, bled the most profusely. The bite that made Lee know.

His father had been an eater. Like father like son.

Lee walked into the police station and sat down, blood-soaked, dead tired in a rickety seat in the waiting room.
When a police officer came over to see what was up with the blood-soaked young man, Lee, and his tired eyes looked up to the man.

He smirked, "I heard you were looking for me."

The moon shone as Lee sauntered out of the police station, still covered in blood. He kicked a rock in the parking lot as he made his way over to his truck.

They hadn't been able to find a reason to keep him when Lee kept adamantly insisting he didn't know where his father had gone after he beat him.
The police would never arrest him or convict him for the murder, because who was to say he was killed and that dear old dad didn't just disappear.

He started his engine and drove to the barn, his final stop before leaving town.

Lee stopped the car abruptly, a couple of feet away from the barn. He cautiously jumped out of the car, being careful not to slam the truck door.

There was a car parked in front of the open doors of the barn. It wasn't one he'd ever seen before.

It smelled different. It smelled like one of him.

He crept towards the doors, checking out the beat-up Chevy Celebrity. It looked relatively normal.
He walked into the barn, staring at the girl who was seemingly waiting for him. She had a knife in one hand, and her dilated eyes searched his body and face.

Lee could see her nose twitching, like a bunny, but something told him she was a lot more dangerous and feral than something like that. She smelled the air, the same way he did when he arrived.

They locked eyes, and she smiled.
They were the same.

Lee's blood was pumping so loudly he was sure she would pounce. His heart was pounding like a scared animal. And she kept smiling, wide enough for Lee to notice her canines glint in the moonlight.

"Hey there." He fumbled out, holding his hands in front of him.

She tilted her head, still looking at him like a piece of meat. Oh, wait.

She stopped smiling. Her soft voice almost whispered.

"I'm hungry. You know anywhere with good food around here?"

He nodded, already slowly backing away from the brunette. She followed after him, somehow not stabbing her sharpened knife into his turned back.

Lee had met another one of his own.

It was thus decided.
Lee had wrought this fate with his own two hands and teeth, and he would not back down now.