You Were What You Eat

  ***

  When Anna woke up the next morning, she checked the paper. One of the first things she did wherever she went was to get a newspaper subscription. She read every paper that came out the morning after she went hunting. She liked to know what was going on where she lived. More importantly, she needed to know how concerned people were about the strange things that happened at night. Whenever she felt people were starting to pay too much attention, she knew it was time to move on.

  Anna was only a little surprised to find that this one had actually made it into the paper; her last attack had also been reported. The story was on page 6, halfway down and said simply:

  19-year-old James Flint was found on a park bench early this morning. When he awoke, he was confused and disoriented, with no memory of what he had been doing. Upon his arrival at the hospital, his blood-pressure was found to be low, which doctors speculate may have been the cause of Flint’s confused state. This is the ninth reported case.

  Anna read this with a mixture of guilt and relief. The relief came from the fact that this may have been the ninth reported case, but not the ninth attack; she had done it much more often than that. After all, she’d been in this city for three months now. Obviously, people weren’t reporting this, probably since there never was much to report. How can you report what you don’t remember? Not that this bothered Anna in the least; she’d like everybody to forget. It made things a lot easier for her.

  Anna’s guilt, on the other hand, came from remembering what she’d actually done; she’d attacked someone. She tried to put it out of her mind – he was fine, wasn’t he? He was alive and, as usual, didn’t even know what had happened. He’d be perfectly alright, she told herself. She decided not to think about it anymore; just pretend that nothing had happened and go on like she always did.

  Chapter 2: Rosemont High