ERIN ROBERTS, RECLUANT SLÄSHER

BLOODLINE AND OUR FAMILY LEGACY

The old axe above our fireplace marks our family legacy—a silent witness to generations of struggle and triumph.

That axe is more than a decoration—it connects our storied past to our present, a simple object linking tradition to our lives now. As I look at it, I’m reminded how legacy seeps into our routines, guiding our story forward.

That axe belonged to the Axman of New Orleans. Its story anchors the legacy I now carry.

I’m a fourth-generation slasher, descended from the Axman.

Family pressure and SLOA rules keep me bound to this work.

The Slasher League of America, SLOA, weaves tradition, survival, fear, and loyalty, binding families like ours. Within this framework, my doubts grow.

Each time I put on the mask, doubt tightens my chest: Is this legacy mine or just a shadow? The question lingers, heavy as ever.

Whenever I mess up, icy anxiety drowns me. My ancestors’ ghostly disappointment closes in, and I barely stop trembling.

I keep asking whether I can break the pattern—or even if I truly want to.

I keep going, fear pressing on my chest, longing for something that’s finally mine.

Living a double life is never simple.

My supply sheets list knives and daily items, making the job routine.

I record encounters quarterly, using paperwork to hide my ache.

Keeping secrets isn’t easy.

Trying to appear normal, we blur the lines between our meetings, snacks, everyday arguments, and SLOA demands.

SLOA meetings are awkward, focused on surviving the day, in contrast to the strained rhythms of home.

With jokes about efficiency, we try to ease the tension.

All of this—the hidden routines, the normalcy facade—reveals our struggle to balance SLOA secrecy with daily life. This tension weaves through our days, shaping what we conceal and forming the everyday backdrop for the deeper philosophies of slashing. As daily life merges with ritual, questions of meaning and inheritance surface, setting the stage for the myths and stories that define us.

The work’s mood hides a truth: true slashers prefer subtlety to spectacle.

My grandfather calls it art; my father, legacy; outsiders call it murder.

SLOA protects our traditions. Meetings are the backbone of our world.

Some say the organization hides insecurity; whatever the reason, it binds us.

The founders thought that controlling fear made them powerful.

SLOA teaches that respect comes from using fear for order.

Members follow the rules, train, and take part in rituals.

These rituals spark debates—tradition and motive are questioned, but never truly settled.

For many, fear shapes identity and power, offering comfort and strength.

Stories say SLOA’s founders met in the woods to forge unity and strict rules.

While we respect the founders, everyone seeks their own reason for belonging. Recently, my motivation has begun to shift, guiding me toward my own identity. This change shapes my actions and affects how I see my role within the SLOA community. At this crossroads, outside influences begin to shape my perspective, especially as my interests move beyond tradition.

I’m drawn to science fiction and technology, which sets me apart from my family.

I’m Erin Roberts.

I look harmless—small, pale, always behind thick glasses.

Rules and uncovering SLOA secrets steady me, even as chaos looms.

Each day, curiosity and duty clash. I want acceptance, but who I am drifts from who I’m meant to be.

Vampire stories matter more to me; they show the unknown outweighs control.

I want a future I choose, not just legacy’s path. That hunger for identity drives me as much as fear or duty.

Stories circulate about the Blood Pact—a clan of ancient vampires out to control the world with violence, infiltrating the government and seeking war to dominate under a New World Order. 

Another legend tells of the Nocturne Guild, a city-vampire clan using money and property to control humans.

The Twilight Guild is a council of vampire leaders who keep peace between clans, so vampires don’t kill each other.

Legends say the Watchers—gods—keep balance so none grow too strong. Myths blur as treaties erode. I handle fantasy better than reality. 

I study these myths, seeking meaning in my community’s rituals.

Better with tech than tradition and fueled by sci-fi, I chase secrets, always feeling out of place.

This curiosity puts me on edge, torn between family and fantasy.

I’m not a natural slasher. Each step splits me: duty or wonder.

I want to prove myself, but dread lingers.

If I accept my differences, maybe I can start my own legacy.

Most people think slashers are big, quiet, and angry.

They don’t expect someone who apologizes to a chair after bumping into it.

Surprises wait at meetings, where expectation and reality often diverge.

This difference stands out most when we’re together—especially at SLOA meetings, where public expectations test our private struggles. These moments highlight the blend of family legacy and organizational pressure at the heart of our lives.

SLOA MEETING AND THE KILL RECORD

Walking into an SLOA meeting means entering another world.

The air reeks of bleach and cleaner.

It’s less a secret society, more a homeowners’ association—masks, knives, rules, and meetings define it.

Cleaning up takes effort, but they never leave traces.

I wonder if vampire clans ever met like this in charge.

On the kill board at the front, numbers update for 2025 with a soft electronic chime.

The ceremony is missing.

No one applauds.

Instead, just data slips into place.

The routine continues, shaping what comes next.

SLOA treats the board as a quarterly update—review, nod, move on.

At the time of the scoreboard, THE HACKER held ninety-one.

The room tenses.

Already, we sense the coming storm next quarter.

Expectation builds.

Everyone braces for the record to topple.

The atmosphere shifts from ritual routine to charged anticipation.

I feel the room react before anyone speaks.

Chairs shift.

Someone exhales through their teeth.

A quiet buzz ripples, secrets passing in silence.

Ninety-one this year alone.

That’s the number of those lands.

When the Hacker’s career-kill number appears beneath the yearly total, his kills top 100.

For many, the math is uncomfortable.

Even veteran slashers feel it.

Everyone quickly calculates.

Deadlight Charlie’s 230 lifetime kills once seemed untouchable.

Dread needles me, sharp and relentless. The Hacker’s numbers weigh on me, magnifying family expectations and my sense of not being enough.

I imagine my father’s disappointment and wonder if next quarter SLOA will add ‘fails to live up to potential’ to my file.

I half-joke about getting marked ‘Needs Improvement: Too Much Empathy.’

Deadlight Charlie was our Babe Ruth, an impossible standard and a legend.

His numbers were legendary; if slashers had posters, his would be everywhere.

No one believed anyone could break the record.

Now that record feels ready to shatter—legend-breaking before our eyes, sending a jolt of grief, awe, and longing through me.

A few people clap, but not loudly.

You don’t cheer when your hero is about to lose his record.

Deadlight is the slasher everyone admires.

As the room quiets, The Hacker, either being modest or already thinking about next year, lowers his head.

Dead Air, half-jealous and half-admiring, asks if he’s pacing himself.

The Hacker smirks and jokes about burnout and the need for a vacation, hinting that legends get tiring.

Stillface, always practical, asks how he keeps his work so clean at this level.

‘Systems help,’ The Hacker says, his smile a little shaky.

‘Planning helps more.’

Their brief exchange is marked by respect and rivalry, revealing the group’s pecking order.

They nod.

They understand.

Deadlight Charlie doesn’t come to meetings anymore.

Some say retirement, others say paranoia, some say he died—and SLOA doesn’t know.

I think he likes his number hanging over the room, invisible but heavy. He was the first to reach a hundred kills, and after that, he will always hold the record.

Legends don’t need seats.

I see the banner of rules behind my father; they are the rules that all SLOA members must follow.

The scoreboard scrolls.

THE SCARLET BUTCHER- FIFTY

There’s restrained applause.

Fifty is a formidable number.

Fifty displays effort.

The Scarlet Butcher smooths his gloves and ignores a comment about his former speed.

The Claw- FORTY

A sympathetic murmur sweeps the room.

Forty.

Even the elite have lean years.

People nod, feigning indifference.

No one mentions he once averaged sixty a year.

No one utters the word decline.

Instead, they rib him lightly about “pacing” and “work-life balance.”

All act as if it were never their number on the board, with the same reaction aimed at them.

Those three are the best. Now attention shifts to us: the everyday experience.

Once the legends’ totals are read, the focus shifts from idolizing records to confronting our own reality—from myths to everyday legacy-building. In these moments, our roles come into clearer view. These comparisons become more deeply personal as the spotlight sharpens on individual legacies.

With the legends accounted for, focus shifts to the room’s center, where the rest of us are still building our legacies. Here, the top five and those below them measure themselves against numbers, names, and old stories, all bound by the same traditions. My father’s name is always near the top, bridging the weight of our heritage with today’s reality.

The top five.

The same names settle in, as if they own the space.

My father’s name is always near the top.

Hollowface never drops below thirty-five a year, strong for an old-timer.

He’s at ease in classic settings—campgrounds, slumber parties.

He doesn’t need record numbers; our family’s legacy is enough for him.

My grandfather, the Scalpel, sits behind, stubbornly holding his place.

I grew up hearing the story of his precision at the 1970s slumber-party massacre.

For him, precision is legacy.

For me, their comparisons are suffocating.

The Curator sits three seats in front of me, posture perfect, costume immaculate.

She tilts her head at the board, eyes fixed on the kill count.

People say she’s the only woman here, and she never corrects them, leaving her identity open like the rest of us keep our stories hidden.

I watch her, wondering if she struggles to fit in, too.

Mr. Ash quietly pours a cup of coffee, then asks around if anyone wants cream.

He talks about a broken bus mirror and kids who won’t sit still.

He speaks in a kind, familiar way, like someone you’d trust to drive you home.

The Velvet Knife complains about airfare prices and says his family lives far away.

He says it like distance explains everything.

I’ve heard that story before.

So has everyone else.

The Undertaker’s Son sits stiffly at the edge of his seat, boots spotless, mask still too new.

Someone congratulates him again on his first kill.

He nods too quickly.

Someone tells him not to rush things.

He listens as if it’s a job he wants to keep.

They pass donuts.

Powdered sugar dusts black gloves.

Someone knocks over a chair and apologizes.

Someone reminds them to keep the aisle clear in case of emergencies.

Behind the podium, the rules hang straight and spotless:

NO UNAUTHORIZED KILLS

NO MEDIA CONTACT

CLEAN UP YOUR SCENES

KILLERS MUST BE VERIFIED

NO FIGHTING DURING MEETINGS

NO KILLING DURING MEETINGS

CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF

The rules read like HR posters: aware, obedient, and boring.

That’s the worst part.

It’s not the masks.

It’s not the smell of blood and cleaning supplies to cover it up.

It’s not the weapons SLOA members carry into the meeting or the weapons room.

The worst part is that SLOA members treat murder like just another job, with goals, legends, and records.

For some, making it routine feels like losing a deeper purpose.

They struggle to find meaning beyond targets and numbers, missing the days when their actions felt connected to something bigger.

There used to be a ritual where members gathered around a fire before a planned kill, taking turns to talk about what their actions meant and remembering the slashers who came before them.

This tradition is said to have started with the earliest SLOA founders, who believed that sharing stories and tokens by the firelight would ward off bad luck and bind the group through a shared purpose.

The fire snapped softly, casting shaky shadows on their faces and setting a serious mood.

Each person held a carved totem, whispering an old phrase, ‘In darkness, we unite,’ which anchored them in shared tradition.

The totems were originally meant to symbolize both personal burdens and connection to the greater slasher community, with each design reflecting the quirks or strengths of its holder.

This ceremony helped them feel connected to their craft and heritage. It mixed the serious mood of a secret group with the dark humor of people who know too much about both blood and paperwork.

During the ritual, the participants gather in a circle around a dancing bonfire, shadows swaying across their faces.

Each member carries a small totem, carved with symbols that represent their individual path and the slasher history they uphold.

They pass a ceremonial blade from person to person, each taking a moment to draw a thin line across their hand, watching the blood catch the glow of the flames, mixing old with new.

Thinking about these rituals, I remember my first time by the fire, sitting with my father and grandfather.

I held my carved totem in my small hands, feeling connected to my family’s past.

The air smelled of burning wood, pine, and a hint of blood.

Each story shared felt like a piece of a quilt we all made together.

Even as I joined in, I felt the weight of expectation. I was proud of my family, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to take on this responsibility.

That sense of legacy shaped me, but it also made me feel trapped. My family’s story clashed with my own doubts.

As I listened to others talk about their biggest kills, my own conflict grew.

I wanted to honor my family, but I also wanted to know whether I truly belonged to this tradition.

I worked to balance empathy with the order and fear that came with our rituals.

That night, I realized I wanted to honor our tradition while also changing it, hoping to shape the legacy rather than inherit it.

Before proceeding, they would amusingly recite OSHA guidelines for chainsaw safety, as if preparing for a work hazard rather than a hunt, merging absurdity with the macabre to break the tension.

This ritual, though now only a memory for many, once cultivated a feeling of fellowship and purpose, turning isolated acts into a shared legacy.

I remember one of the last rituals I attended.

The sky was deep, pitch-black, and the atmosphere bore the heavy fragrance of oak and smoke.

We assembled in a clearing, a semicircle around a roaring fire, our faces bathed in its light.

Each family elder moved ahead deliberately, holding a carved wooden token representing their place in the lineage.

They told anecdotes about their first kills, their voices somber, albeit colored with pride, as the flames swayed silhouettes across their faces.

Their words bore hard on me, and I treated them like a timeworn artifact, handling and revering them.

It’s a memory that still lingers, a clear opposition to the impersonal lists and data that define SLOA today.

They talk about escape routes, the best times to act, and their latest surveillance tricks.

They also share family news and show pictures of their kids.

Complaints about traffic, sore knees, backaches, and gloves that tear too easily are common.

The gloves just aren’t as good as they used to be.

SLOA members plan violence the way other people plan vacations.

Assess. If you saw them on the street, you’d trust them to hold a door open for you. The vibration from the scoreboard grows louder, mixing and blending, melting, merging into the background as a recollection of what’s coming.

The numbers go up, each mild bell adding to the tension.

The room feels full of silent expectation.

The Hacker will break the record.

Everyone knows it, but no one says it.

The lights dim.

The music creeps in.

And the meeting officially begins.

THE SLOA SONG AND MY SLASHER FAILURE

My father taps his phone.

A low, crawling sound fills the room, a bass note that seems to slide under the floor and up our spines.

Chairs scrape back.

Everyone stands.

Then they sing.

We are the slashers.

We plan; we don’t improvise.

We count the dead, we sharpen blades.

The harmonies are surprisingly good.

It feels like a company retreat if the company specializes in dismemberment.

We clean the scene, we fear no gods except caffeine, we file reports.

Someone claps on beat.

I hate that person.

We don’t freelance; we kill at night.

We moisturize; we follow code.

Moisturizer gets surprisingly much emphasis.

We are the slashers; we are the dread.

The song ends on a long, reverent note.

“Please silence your phones,” my father says calmly.

The song is catchy.

That’s the worst part.

There’s a pause.

My father clears his throat and tilts his head toward the front of the room.

“Erin,” he says. “Why don’t you come up here?”

Oh.

No.

No, thank you.

I take a step forward and feel everyone’s eyes on me.

My clown shoes squeak so loudly that I wince.

The mask starts to itch, and my costume, which felt bold at home, now feels utterly ridiculous. Someone in the crowd gives a sly smile, and time seems to slow down.

My big clown shoes squeak again when I bump the podium.

I didn’t plan for that.

I never checked if they squeaked, and now each step betrays me.

A few people snort, and someone coughs to hide a laugh.

I hear someone quietly ask, ‘Is that an appearance?’

Clownius Maximus, conqueror of nothing.

I stand there, trying to look menacing, but my posture keeps slipping into that of a birthday party magician waiting for the kids to quiet down.

“State your name,” my father says.

I lean toward the mic.

It feeds back immediately.

“I am,” I say, quieting the sound of my speech, “Clownius Maximus.”

The room breaks.

It’s not full laughter.

That wouldn’t be polite.

It’s controlled amusement, professional mirth.

There’s a current of smiles, a shoulder shake here, and I feel like I’m dying in every way possible: ironically, symbolically, and emotionally.

Then a chair moves.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

The amusement stops, as if someone cut the power.

My grandfather stands.

He doesn’t raise the sound of his speech.

He doesn’t have to.

He’s old-school.

Legacy.

His mask, now on, is plain and simple; his blade, ceremonial, is still stained in ways no one ever asks about.

When he looks at you, you remember why the code exists.

“Let the boy speak,” he says.

Silence.

I pause.

Everyone in the room waits.

“It turns out,” I say carefully, “that cabins have steps.

And steps are not clown friendly.”

I show my clown-sized shoes to the crowd.

A few people lower their heads.

My grandfather clears his throat sharply.

That helps.

“I tripped,” I admit.

“On my own shoe, which came untied.

Apparently, terror doesn’t make you better at tying knots.”

I mime the fall.

I shouldn’t, but it happens.

“I rolled down three steps and hit a cooler.

The cooler popped open, and ice went everywhere.

One counselor screamed, another sprayed me with bug repellent, and the third—this is important—asked if I was part of a skit.”

My father exhales through his nose.

“I panicked,” I say.

“I tried to recover.

I raised the knife, but my arm cramped.

I dropped it, and it slid under a bunk.”

I make a helpless gesture.

“Then a raccoon showed up.”

Someone laughs.

My grandfather’s head snaps around.

Silence again.

The raccoon bit me suddenly, its teeth breaking my skin with a hot, crunching feeling that sent a shock through my arm.

The shock from the bite made me fall backward. I hit my head, and everything went dark.

When I woke up in the infirmary, a steady throb pounded through my skull, and I had three stitches to remind me of the incident.

A counselor stood up for me, apologizing for ‘ruining my performance.’

I pause.

“No one died.”

My father clicks his tongue.

“He had to call for extraction,” he adds. “At two in the morning.”

“I needed medical attention,” I say defensively.

“You needed a ride,” my father says.

A subdued murmur passes through the group.

Sympathy mixed with judgment.

The worst kind.

My grandfather nods once, as if filing it away.

My father steps forward.

“Enough,” he says.

“Everyone has a bad first attempt.”

He looks at me.

“Some worse than others.”

Fair.

“You will find a new kill,” he continues.

“You will plan better.

You will choose wisely.”

He ticks it off on his fingers.

Female.

Possibly drunk.

Enclosed space.

Somewhere, she cannot run.

Somewhere you control.

The room vibrates with approval.

It makes sense.

Slasher killing made simple.

To illustrate, he shares how seasoned slashers adjust after setbacks, citing The Velvet Knife’s approach.

‘He once had a kill slip through his fingers,’ my father continues, ‘but he quickly learned to anticipate behavior by studying his target’s routines.

Now, he never underestimates the importance of preparation—keeping knives sharp, exits in mind, and an ever-flexible plan.’

What he doesn’t mention (but everyone remembers) is the time The Velvet Knife showed up for a job, lugging a rolling suitcase labeled “Serial Tools Only” in glitter paint, only to discover he’d packed nothing but twelve different kinds of moisturizer and a single bread knife.

After excusing himself with the line, “Even killers deserve supple skin,” he improvised with a plastic spork and still somehow got the job done.

Such anecdotes serve as both guidance and inspiration, helping the younger generation draw on the collective experience of seasoned members.

I nod, staring at the floor, trying to listen to my father’s advice while I twist the hem of my shirt again, as if I’m trying to hold onto something steady.

Each word from him feels heavy, and I want to believe I can do what he expects, but a protest sticks in my throat and won’t go away.

The question hits me: what if I’m not meant to control others or make fear my legacy?

I pause my hand, then keep it moving, a small act of resistance against his certainty.

Old vampire stories drift at the edge of my mind, hinting at secrets and other paths. My heart races with both fear and hope.

I see myself caught between two worlds. One is built on rules and family, and the other questions whether fear is worth the cost.

Can tradition leave space for something softer?

Could I ever hold empathy in the same hands that grip a knife?

My throat closes around the words as guilt prickles behind my glasses.

The urge to confess my uncertainty flashes hot and desperate, but the faces around the room, full of expectation and history, press me silent.

All I can do is nod again, hiding the storm inside me and my longing for understanding beneath the weight of loyalty.

Torn between risking disappointment and relinquishing my identity, I keep my lips pressed shut and let my nod play the part my heart cannot.

In that quiet, I feel every unspoken wish pulling me in different directions as I stand between my family’s world and my own.

Closed space.

Controlled environment.

No stairs.

No wildlife.

No bug spray.

I can do this.

Clownius Maximus will rise again.

I need a better outfit and better shoes.

MEGAN

I met Megan on Instagram.

She messages first.

Megan slips into my DMs, as the hip kids say.

That alone should have made me stop and think.

I noticed how hot Megan was and how out of my league she was.

I found it interesting and kept going for the heck of it.

Megan is attractive in a way that seems very deliberate.

She knows she is hot; her timing is spot on; she knows when to reply and when not to.

Megan has glasses and long blonde hair.

Megan’s smile says she’s already ahead of you, and she knows you like that.

There’s something familiar about her, also, but I can’t pin it down.

The more I try, the more it fades away.

Megan carries herself like she can see the parts of you that you try to keep hidden, and that she will keep your secret.

Megan is the kind of woman who makes you forget what you were about to say halfway through a sentence.

Not in a dramatic way, but in a sudden, inexplicably blank way.

Your brain will skip a beat, and her eyes seem to hold onto something important, something she’s not ready to share with you yet, but if she likes you, she will.

I hesitate around her.

I doubt myself.

And I don’t know if that’s because of who she is or what she makes me notice about myself.

How uncool I really am.

Even though I feel uncool, I still drive to meet her in my car.

It works, but it isn’t very comfortable.

The engine sounds like a dragon snoring, and the inside smells like old coffee mixed with wet dog.

When I pull into Megan’s neighborhood, everything looks nicer aAnythingr than anything I’ve seen, and my family is upper-middle-class.

The sidewalks are wider, the neighborhood planted the trees for looks, and the buildings seem like they’ve never had money problems.

They’re all up to date with the newest technology.

I reconfirm the address, then verify once more, just in case.

But I’m in the right place. Before I park, I go over my internal checklist. 

“Okay, checklist. Mask, gloves, knives…directions. Because if I get lost again, Dad will literally kill me. Well, not literally. Probably. Still, better paranoid than punished.”

My car looks small and not ready for fun compared to theirs.

You’re fine, I tell myself.

Megan wanted to meet you, not your car.

The bar sits in a corner, occupying almost an entire block.

Warm light spills out of the tall windows, casting a glow that feels too perfect, almost surreal.

Inside, people move slowly and confidently, as if they’re in on a secret only the night knows.

No one rushes because they don’t have to, wrapped in a sense of eternal time.

I sit in my car for a moment, hands on the wheel, thinking about the plan.

It’s simple: meet Megan, talk, laugh, leave together, kill her in the car, clean up, go home, and make Dad and Grandfather proud. As I think about this, a chill runs down my spine. A neon stag twinkles above the bar’s entrance, giving me a strange feeling.

Its flickering light casts shadows that move in a way that hints things might not go as simply as I planned.

But I still want their approval, even though I tell myself about the family legacy.

That need for validation runs deep, mixed with ambition.

I can’t dismiss the feeling that everything depends on this moment.

Simple plan: it should be easier to execute instead of a mass killing at a camp.

I step inside the bar.

The White Stag is the name.

The room is full of pale people dressed in black.

All of them.

Black coats, black shirts, black dresses.

Sunglasses too, which is odd, because it’s night.

They’re clustered in small groups, murmuring to each other, voices low.

No one laughs loudly.

No one raises their voice.

It appears less like a bar and more like a meeting that forgot to adjourn.

I notice all of this.

I decide it’s the White Stag’s vibe.

Then I see Megan.

She’s sitting at a small table near the back, legs crossed and body language calm, like she owns the place.

She’s wearing a black dress that fits her perfectly and makes her look great, but not in an obvious way.

She’s stunning, but not in a way that seems welcoming or like someone I would end up with.

She’s the kind of woman who ruins lives and keeps going.

She doesn’t scan the room.

She looks directly at me.

Like she already knows I was there.

“Erin,” she says when I get close.

It’s not a question.

“Hi,” I say. “You look… real.”

I feel awkward.

She smiles. “Thank you.”

I laugh, a little too loud.

Megan doesn’t seem to mind.

She seems to like me.

“Get us drinks,” she says lightly.

Still smiling.

She says it like a choice, but it’s really an order.

I nod immediately. “Yeah.”

I don’t know why I didn’t question it.

I go.

My body moves before my brain catches up, as if I’m following muscle memory I never learned.

The bartender is young.

Early twenties.

Jet-black hair tied back.

Black nail polish chipped at the edges.

She’s leaning against the bar, completely absorbed in a paperback with a worn spine.

The cover depicts a woman with fangs and heavy eyeliner.

Something Blood Moon.

A vampire love tale.

She doesn’t look up right away.

“What can I get you?” she asks, eyes still on the page.

“Uh,” I say. “I’ll have a… classy beer.”

She looks up, then, one eyebrow lifting.

“We don’t have ‘classy beer.’”

“Right. Okay. Something that looks like it belongs here.”

She thinks for a moment, then nods.

“And for her, the usual, right?”

“Yes,” I say, doing my best to keep my cool.

The bartender pauses.

She puts a coaster in her book to save her place, then sets it on the bar.

She disappears into the back.

While I wait, I hear something.

A sound, low, and brief.

A scream.

Human.

It’s muffled, like someone tried to stop it halfway through.

I freeze, listening.

Nothing else follows.

You’re imagining it, I tell myself.

You’re nervous.

The bartender comes back carrying a goblet.

Not a glass.

A goblet.

Inside is something bright red.

Thick.

Not wine.

It clings to the sides when the bartender sets it down.

The bartender then walks over to the taps, grabs a beer mug, places it under one of the tap spouts, and pours it to perfection.

She walks back over with a mug of beer and sets it beside the goblet.

My beer looks sad next to it.

“That’ll be twenty-five dollars,” she says.

I pay.

As I turn, I feel eyes on me.

Not casually.

Deliberately.

I walk slowly back to the table, careful not to spill.

Halfway there, I glance at one of the nearby tables.

A man pulls his sunglasses down just enough to look at me.

His eyes are bright red.

I blink.

He’s already looking away.

I decide it’s just the lighting.

Probably just bad lighting.

Megan smiles when I return.

“That looks good,” she says, eyeing the goblet.

“It looks… committed,” I reply.

She laughs. “You’re funny.”

We talk.

We talk about normal things.

Megan tells me about her job, which is exciting and full of travel, people, and new experiences.

When it’s my turn, I talk about my hobbies—nerdy stuff, my likes and dislikes, just regular things, nothing about SLOA.

Megan listens like she’s really interested in what I have to say.

“You’re cute,” she says.

I blush.

Soon, somehow, the conversation shifts.

Not abruptly.

It slides there.

“My place is close,” Megan says, her fixed gaze on me.

“We could go back.”

I want to say no.

I really do.

The plan was the car.

But my mouth opens anyway.

“Yeah,” I say.

The word slips out before I can stop it, as if my mouth chose for me.

Something heavy settles over my thoughts, and I can’t push through it.

Megan stands.

I follow.

As we walk out, I feel it clearly for the first time—not excitement, not anticipation, but danger.

Real danger.

Not the kind I usually bring with me.

A new danger.

MEGAN’S APARTMENT

The next thing I clearly remember is the car slowing down.

It doesn’t stop, slows down, as if it’s getting close to something important and doesn’t want to make a scene.

We pull up in front of an upscale apartment building that looks like it’s never seen hardship.

Tall glass, soft lighting, and a lobby you can see straight through marble, calm, and expensive. The doorman stands very still, never blinking, as if he’s aware of everything but never surprised. You’re surprised.

My car doesn’t belong here.

I’m foggy about how we got here.

That bothers me more than it should.

I remember leaving the bar.

I remember Megan’s hand on my arm, gentle albeit firm.

I remember nodding, smiling, and agreeing.

I don’t remember the drive—no directions, no turns, nothing. It just feels like time skipped ahead and left me here.

I turn off the engine, then look at Megan.

“Here we are,” she says cheerfully.

I blink. “Right. Yeah. Of course.”

We get out of the car.

I stand there for a second, empty-handed, staring at the building as it might blink first.

Megan is already walking toward the entrance, heels clicking lightly on concrete.

“Erin,” she says, not looking back.

I snap out of it and remember the bag.

My bag.

The one in the back seat.

I grab it at the last second, my fingers encircling the strap like my body almost forgot it on purpose.

The bag seems weightier than usual.

Or maybe I’m just more aware of what’s inside.

Tools.

Preparation.

Intent.

Megan holds the door open with a keycard.

There’s a soft beep, clean and well-mannered, as the building approves of her.

Inside, everything is quiet—not empty but controlled.

The lobby smells slightly scented with citrus and something I can’t identify, maybe ozone or metal.

The elevator ride is short.

Too short.

I barely notice the floor number before the doors open.

Her apartment door unlocks with another beep.

No fumbling.

No searching for keys.

She steps inside like she’s walking onto a stage she knows well.

The apartment is beautiful.

And wrong.

It’s fancy in a way that seems curated rather than lived-in: clean lines, neutral colors, and art on the walls that looks expensive yet distant.

Everything is in its place, maybe too much so.

No clutter.

No mail.

No shoes were left near the door.

No jacket thrown over a chair.

No half-finished anything.

No evidence of a human being with habits.

I step inside and feel the door close behind me.

Megan moves through the space, relaxed, at home, kicking her heels off neatly by the entryway.

She doesn’t toss them.

She places them.

She moves like someone who doesn’t worry about bumping into things.

It’s as if the space belongs to her, or maybe she belongs to it.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she says.

I nod, though I don’t.

“I—uh—where’s your bathroom?” I ask.

She turns, eyebrow lifting slightly.

Curious, but amused.

“Down the hall,” she says. “First door on the left.”

I hesitate, then lift the bag slightly.

“I’ve got… meds. In here. I should take them.”

It’s not my best lie.

It’s not even a good one.

It’s vague in a way that sounds practiced but not convincing.

Megan smiles.

She half-believes me.

Or half-doesn’t.

Either way, she lets it go.

“Go ahead,” she says. “I’ll be right here.”

I walk down the hall.

Each step sounds louder than it should.

The lights are on, soft and recessed, but they don’t reach far.

Shadows gather where they shouldn’t.

The hallway feels longer than the apartment should allow.

Every time I go to the bathroom, I close the door behind me.

Folded white towels sit unused, untouched by water or skin.

No toothbrush waits by the sink.

No makeup dots the counter.

No stray hair clings to the porcelain.

The mirror shines, flawless and almost accusing, showing an emptiness that feels out of place.

Too spotless.

I stare at my image for a second longer than necessary.

I look pale.

My glasses sit slightly askew on my nose.

My eyes look unfocused.

Like I’m underwater and just realized it.

Focus, I tell myself.

This moment arrives.

I unzip the bag.

The mask comes out first, then the black gloves, and a standard kitchen knife.

No shoes—I wasn’t having that issue again.

The clown face is smooth like porcelain, its smirk frozen in a way that looks like joy but isn’t real.

I hold it for a second, staring at it as if it might argue with me.

“This is a terrible plan,” I mutter softly.

The mask does not disagree.

I slide it over my head and feel that familiar shift, the internal click where Erin steps back and something else takes over.

Not rage.

Not thrilling.

Just purpose: narrow, clean, and simple.

Cool.

Solid.

Honest.

I grip it and feel calmer right away, which probably isn’t a good sign, but at least it’s consistent—consistency matters.

“Okay,” I whisper to myself. “In and out. Car. Clean. Done.”

I open the bathroom door.

The lights in the hallway are off.

All of them.

The apartment is dark.

It’s not pitch-black.

There’s a faint radiance glowing through tall windows ahead, thin silver lines across the floor.

But the soft, reassuring glow from before is gone.

My heartbeat quickens and picks up.

“Megan?” I call, keeping my speech mellow.

Casual.

Like, this is normal.

No answer.

I step into the hallway.

The carpet muffles my footsteps.

The walls feel close. The silent atmosphere presses in, so thick it almost feels like you could taste it.

I move slowly, knife held low, anything for anything: breathing, movement, the trace of fabric.

Nothing.

I reach the living room.

Empty.

The furniture sits perfectly arranged, untouched.

The couch cushions are smooth.

The coffee table is bare.

No glass.

No bag.

No Megan.

A soft noise reaches me then.

Not a scream.

Not yet.

Something softer.

A movement.

A shift.

Just beyond me.

I turn, my heart beating fast, the mask’s grin fixed and useless.

For the first time tonight, I don’t know what’s happening.

And worse,

I don’t know where she is.

The hallway behind me stretches into gloom, patient and waiting.

The apartment appears less like a home now and more like it’s holding its sigh.

I take another step forward.

Careful.

Listening.

That is when I see her.

Or what she is

MY ESCAPE

I see Megan before my brain fully accepts what my eyes are telling it.

She’s in full vampire form.

No ambiguity.

Red eyes, fangs out, smiling like she practiced this in the mirror.

Her presence feels heavy, giving off a strong sense of power and threat.

She moves with a speed that’s not human, as if the air makes way for her.

Her strength seems ancient, making her movements look almost too smooth.

The space around her feels charged, and her presence seems to alter how everything looks.

And of course, even in mid-transformation, she’s still better dressed than I am.

In this state, she gives off a cool confidence that shifts the mood of the room.

Her eyes seem deep, hinting at something eternal. They show a mix of wisdom, cynicism, and an understanding of the fear she causes. The usual vampire weaknesses don’t seem to affect her. Her presence feels beyond normal limits, hinting at something more than old myths.

She has a sharp intelligence, probably able to see every move and every weakness.

The room holds its breath.

Somewhere in the distance, a clock ticks, its subdued rhythm in stark contrast with the silent anticipation hanging thick in the air.

Each tick stretches the moment, deepening the dread of what lies ahead.

Like someone who solves a puzzle before anyone else, she tilts her head and says, almost warmly, “Killers know killers.”

I don’t think.

Thinking is a luxury for people who live.

My arm snaps forward.

The knife hits her dead center in the chest.

I feel the resistance, the ugly little give as it sinks in.

She gasps—not dramatically, which somehow makes it worse—and falls backward.

Hard.

The knife stays where it is, upright, like a flag I planted by accident.

Silence.

I stand there, frozen, waiting for the follow-up.

The scream.

The twitch.

The supernatural nonsense.

Nothing happens.

She lies on the floor, eyes closed, mouth open, fangs still out like she forgot to put them away.

There’s barely any blood.

That bothers me.

I’m not sure why, but it feels disrespectful.

Even her death seems like she’s not giving it her full effort.

Okay.

Okay.

This is it—my first kill.

I know the rule.

Don’t check the body.

Ever.

Bodies are liars.

Bodies exist purely to ruin your night.

But this is different.

Megan’s death is my first kill.

I need confirmation.

Closure.

A receipt.

I take one step closer.

Then another.

Slow.

Controlled.

Professional.

My heart pounds so loudly I worry it might give me away.

She doesn’t move.

I lean in, just a little.

Megan’s skin looks perfect.

Of course, it does.

Even dead, she’s irritatingly attractive.

Her hair fans out on the floor as if she planned it that way. Her lips are parted, frozen in mid-expression. Unreal.

I tell myself not to look at her mouth.

I look at her mouth.

“Don’t be stupid,” I mutter to myself, which is exactly what people say right before doing something stupid.

I crouch.

I listen for breathing.

I don’t hear any, but my ears are ringing, so that’s not helpful.

I hover my hand over Megan’s chest, then pull it back.

Touching feels close.

Wrong.

Like I’d be crossing from murder into something weirder.

I lift my mask a little so I can breathe.

The atmosphere has a tinge of Megan’s perfume.

That doesn’t seem fair.

My thoughts start to spiral.

I killed someone.

That’s real.

I feel bad about it, and that’s real too.

I also feel excited, sharp, buzzing, and alive, and that part scares me more.

I imagine explaining this to SLOA.

Yes, I felt guilt.

Yes, I felt joy too.

No, I don’t know what that says about me.

Do I leave the knife?

Pull it out?

Gloves on, no fingerprints. But taking it out feels like admitting I want this to be permanent.

Leaving it feels sloppy.

SLOA hates sloppy.

I move nearer.

That’s when her eyes snap open.

Bright.

Red.

Focused.

She smiles. “I wanted you to feel special, Erin,” she says. “I wanted to give you your first kill.”

I scream.

It’s not heroic.

It’s a pure, instinctive sound, torn directly out of my lungs.

I stumble backward, trip over my own feet, and drop my mask.

I don’t stop to grab it.

I run.

Hallway.

Turn.

Stairwell.

I take the steps two at a time.

I don’t look back because I don’t want confirmation.

I need distance.

I burst out onto the first floor and sprint for my car as if it owes me money.

I dive inside, slam the door, and drop my head to start the engine.

It roars to life, loud and aggressive, almost as if it’s trying to help me.

I look up.

Megan stands before the car.

Eyes red.

Fangs out.

The knife is still sticking out of her upper body, like a joke with a bad punchline.

She holds my mask in one hand, dangling it by the strap.

“You forgot something,” she says.

I don’t hesitate.

I hit the gas.

She doesn’t move—until the last second.

Then she jumps.

I hear her land on the roof.

Scraping.

Footsteps above me, light and fast.

When I glance in the rearview mirror, she’s standing in the street, laughing, like this was all foreplay.

I’m in serious trouble. I lost my mask.

Dad is going to be mad.

Grandpa will try to understand, and SLOA?

They’re going to want to kill me.

And beyond the confines of our bloodlines and old codes, there lurks a deeper dread.

What if this blunder leaks beyond the shadows?

One stray clip, a whispered rumor, and the headlines could cast a harsh light on our secretive world.

Viral videos, tabloid stories, and the sharp glare of public curiosity-; each has the potential to unravel everything, turning my personal failure into a communal catastrophe—a downfall that has existed only in our nightmares.

LIABILITY LABEL AND MY SLASHER TRAINING

Dad is mad, and I tell him what happened.

He does not believe me.

Things I’m making up to save face; I don’t want to take ownership of the fact that I’m a screw-up.

Grandpa shows patience but is still not happy.

I broke an unwritten rule that need not be on a banner.

Please don’t take your mask off and lose it.

SLOA membership is not happy

They don’t kill me.

They label me

At the meeting after my last failed attempt, I mentioned the word vampires. Psycho Killer yells out, “This is impossible! They’re just legends!” The scoreboard updates, and for the first time in SLOA history, a slasher is considered a liability.

ERIN ROBERTS LIABILITIES — 2

The two liabilities came off my mask, and I lost it.

My Grandpa stopped SLOA from adding another liability, which would have labeled me as a liar, for my story about Megan being a vampire and not dying.

I lied to cover my ass, and that’s a fact: I’m a fuck-up.

My mentor can’t stand me.

Ashmask makes that very clear without ever raising his tone.

He doesn’t yell.

Yelling would mean he cares.

Instead, he sighs.

Constantly.

Deep, theatrical sighs.

The kind that suggests my existence just made his day, or maybe his whole life, more complicated.

Every time I mess up, he pauses, closes his eyes, and exhales like he’s trying to remember why he didn’t retire when he had the chance.

He never insults me directly.

That would be efficient.

Instead, he offers advice that feels like an accusation.

Most people don’t stab like that, he says, staring at the wall.

Not at me.

Never at me.

Training with Ashmask feels more akin to guidance and a long-running social experiment.

He demonstrates a technique once.

Perfectly.

Then he watches me attempt it and looks genuinely surprised that the outcome is worse.

Not angry.

He seems disappointed in the laws of physics.

My father stands off to the side, arms crossed and silent.

He watches me miss my timing, mess up my form, and overthink every move.

I can feel his disappointment coming off him in waves.

He looks amazed, but not in a proud way.

It’s more like watching a car slowly roll into a ditch, knowing no one will stop it.

Every so often, my grandfather chimes in from wherever he’s stationed, calm as ever.

He’ll be fine, he tells my father.

He’s a late bloomer.

Late bloomer.

That’s what you call a kid who hasn’t murdered efficiently yet.

My father doesn’t believe him.

I don’t either.

We exchange tight, shared looks every time Grandpa says it, looks that say we are watching the same disaster unfold.

Grandpa remains unbothered.

He’s seen things.

Apparently, worse than me.

Ashmask runs me through drills like he’s trying to sand down a very stubborn mistake.

He corrects my stance.

My grip.

My breathing.

He even tries to correct the way I exist.

When I finally get something right, he nods once and moves on, which somehow feels worse than criticism.

I can tell he wishes he were assigned to anyone else—a trainee, a problem-anything chair—anything but me.

Meanwhile, my father keeps watching, silent, noticing every mistake like it’s a personal insult.

I can sense the burden of the family legacy—generations of clean kills, acute instincts, natural talent—and then there’s me, struggling to hold a knife without turning it into a group project.

Grandpa smiles and repeats it later.

He calls me a ‘large bloomer’ this time, as if changing the word might help.

It doesn’t.

Ashmask sighs.

My father winces.

I miss my mark.

And somehow, I’m still here.

GRANDFATHER

My grandfather asks me to stay late.

We sit down with tea like normal people, which somehow makes it all feel even stranger.

He cradles the cup with both hands, mist blurring his glasses, and tells me—casually, like he’s commenting on the weather—that he struggled when he first started his slasher journey.

I blink.

Hard.

I never knew that.

He says he doesn’t talk about it much.

Then he adds, even more casually, that he failed his first attempt to kill someone.

I almost dropped my cup.

“A young couple,” he says. “Lover’s lane. Classic. Textbook. Absolute disaster.” He leans back and starts listing everything that went wrong, as if he’s reading off a grocery list.

The car wouldn’t stall.

His mask strap snapped, whipping him in the face.

He tumbled over a picnic blanket he didn’t see.

The flashlight went out at the exact wrong moment.

The knife slipped out of his hand and slid under the car, as if it wanted a new job.

“At one point,” he says, stirring his tea, “I locked eyes with the boy while I was crawling on my stomach trying to reach the knife.

Really killed the mystique.”

I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste copper.

He notices.

Smiles.

“It’s all right,” he says. “Go ahead and laugh. Things go wrong.”

I do.

Quietly at first.

Then less quietly.

Then not at all quietly.

He tells me he exited that night, soaked in mud, dignity shredded, chased halfway down the road by a man in tube socks screaming, “What the hell was that supposed to be?”

He didn’t even get the dignity of a clean escape—his car refused to start.

“The engine flooded,” he says. “Of course it did.”

The other SLOA members never talk about their failures.

They act like they were born lethal, fully formed, knives already balanced in their hands.

They don’t want to remember.

But I’ve been around long enough to know most of them anyway.

The pauses.

The deflections.

The way some stories aren’t completely true.

My grandfather takes a sip of his tea.

Then he looks at me and says,

“You see patterns.”

“Yes.”

“You see your failure points.”

“Yes.”

“SLOA is failing you.”

I blink.

“As the old proverb says,” he continues, “a rolling stone gathers no moss.

But SLOA has been rolling too long.”

His speech is important—custom. His words feel important, with a sense of urgency rooted in tradition. It used to be a meeting place.

It used to be regarding survival, support, and passing knowledge down before anyone bled out.

Somewhere along the way, it became a scoreboard.

Outdoing instead of helping.

Posturing instead of teaching.

I nod.

I’ve noticed it, too, even in my short time here.

“Legacy rots,” he says. “You don’t keep it alive by worshipping it.

You keep it alive by breaking it and building something new.”

Legacy rots.

Remember this when you doubt: break it and build anew.

He looks at me like he’s placing a bet he shouldn’t make—but makes anyway.

“Don’t disappoint me again,” he says. “Failure happens.

Just don’t let it be who you are.”

It hits me harder than I expected.

But it feels encouraging.

I go back to work.

My grandfather gets up to leave.

My father appears in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes alert.

He’s watching me.

For the first time in a long while, I don’t feel smaller under his gaze.

I feel aligned.

Tuned.

It feels like something finally clicked into place.

“What did you say to him?” my father asks my grandfather.

“I told him about my first time,” I say. “My failure at lover’s lane.”

My father raises an eyebrow.

“But you killed the couple—and quickly,” my father chuckles.

My grandfather doesn’t correct him.

They watch on as I focus on my knife work, steadier and more precise than before.

My grandfather clicks his tongue.

He doesn’t need to know everything.

Some failures are private.

Some lessons are earned, not displayed.

My father watches a moment longer.

“We need young blood in SLOA,” my grandfather says. “Erin can help with that.”

“Maybe,” my father says. “It’s time we go in another direction,” my grandfather responded.

My father turns. “What direction?”

My grandfather pauses.

He thinks a moment.

“The truth is, I don’t know yet.

But for the first time, that doesn’t scare me.

“But let’s see what Erin gives us.”

My father studies me.

Then, slowly, he nods.

For once, he does not correct me.

KILLSWITCH

I keep working on being a slasher.

I also start doing something else.

I map.

Not bodies.

Not exists.

Exits.

I map out where communication breaks down, where messages get lost, and where rules exist just because someone important once said them, and no one questioned them.

I sketch out assumptions like they’re load-bearing walls, but most of them aren’t.

I teach the AI how SLOA really works, not the version we show outsiders.

I give it the details: our hierarchy, the rituals no one talks about, the grudges that last longer than meetings, and the awkward silences that say more than the rules ever could.

The AI understands.

It respects our traditions, keeps things private, and helps us get better rather than replace us.

I show it how to listen for the things we don’t say, so it can help build a system that fits who we are.

The goal is simple: help slashers improve without making body counts the only thing that matters.

It’s there to keep the work from eating us up inside.

The AI fits in faster than most new members.

Imagine it sitting in on meetings, noting which types of fear work best, or quietly messaging out reminders like ‘Remember: wipe for prints, not just for dust.’

During one tense session, it hijacked the PowerPoint to flash “SLOA: Where every meeting is BYOK (Bring Your Own Knife),” and the older members snorted into their coffee.

Another time, it tried to streamline a debate about chainsaws by popping up with, “Probability of chainsaw usage: 0.43 percent. Use for dramatic effect only,” which defused the fight and somehow made The Scarlet Butcher laugh.

Sometimes, it even weighs in with a dry comment, pointing out how unlikely it is we’ll ever use our ceremoAnythinges for anything except collecting lint.

Its sense of humor makes the whole thing feel less cold and more at home in the room—a reminder that being practical and having a sense of humor can go hand in hand, even here.

Fear is fuel.

Everyone knows that.

But no one talks about efficiency.

Fear shouldn’t exist for a single use.

Just once.

I have the AI design loops—ways to collect, redirect, and reuse fear.

Sustainable terror.

Renewable panic.

Very eco-friendly.

I built a VR training system.

Trainees and veterans run classic slasher scenarios together: cabins, campgrounds, hospitals, lovers’ lanes.

The victims fit the scene.

They scream right.

They run wrong.

You can smell the blood if you lean into it.

People come out, shaking and smiling, as if they just finished a spiritual workout.

Without asking, I add every active SLOA member to the system.

Fingerprint locks replace the old cameras.

No more fuzzy footage.

No more tapes labeled “DO NOT TOUCH (IMPORTANT)” that everyone touches.

After Megan, I know the threat isn’t just law enforcement anymore.

I built something.

Not a weapon.

A framework.

Something meant to help us survive ourselves.

That’s when I make the mistake of letting Erin present it.

Erin loves presentations.

Erin also loves buttons.

He stands in front of the room, sweating with zeal, and says, “Okay, so this is the kill switch.”

A pause.

“Bad name,” he adds. “Fun function.”

Ashmask shifts in his chair.

He had begun to like me during training.

I can feel that goodwill evaporating in real time.

I keep going, cheerfully unaware.

“If the system detects a breach, a leak, or a betrayal—boom.”

He mimes a burst with his hands.

“Everything locks down.

Identities encrypted.

Access revoked.

Even I can’t undo it.

Which is comforting, because I panic under pressure.”

Someone demands to know why the system already lists them.

Another person realizes the system links their permissions to someone else’s access.

Another realizes their real name exists anywhere at all.

The room changes temperature.

Ashmask stands. “You put everyone in?”

I nod. “With tiered access.”

SLOA gets loud.

People don’t trust me.

They’ve watched me fail too often to confuse confidence with competence.

They imagine headlines.

Leaks.

Exposure.

People who shouldn’t know their names say them out loud.

My father steps forward.

“You bypassed protocol,” he says. “You entered everyone into your system without consent.”

I open my mouth.

He doesn’t allow me to use it.

“You embarrassed your grandfather and me.

We trusted you to do this and not fuck up.”

“I protected assets,” I say.

“I improved security.”

“I built training so real you can taste the blood.”

Silence.

My grandfather positions himself at the fringe of the room, calming people with one hand like he’s smoothing water.

Our eyes meet.

He’s not proud.

He’s pissed.

My heart drops through my torso.

My father turns back to me.

“You’re not a slasher,” he says.

“I know.”

He exhales, slow and heavy.

“You might be even worse.”

The room freezes.

“You might destroy us all.”

The words land hard.

They hurt because they might be true.

THE OFFER

Before my father and I can take the fight any further, Kill Switch screams.

A full-body alarm that shakes the building’s bones.

Red lights pulse.

“What is that?” my father snaps.

“It’s the security system that I hooked to the building’s cameras,” I say. “Someone’s trying to get in.”

“Who?”

I swallow. “Someone’s fingerprints don’t match any of our members.”

I pull out my phone and tap into the camera feed.

The image jitters, then sharpens.

A figure stands outside the perimeter.

Wearing a Clownius Maximus mask.

A lump forms in my throat.

There’s only one person on Earth who would wear that unironically.

My father shoves closer. “Allow me to see.”

I turn the screen.

His eyes widen.

“Megan,” I say.

The room shifts.

My brain backpedals hard, tripping over memory.

Megan’s apartment.

Her bathroom.

I left my bag of directions to SLOA headquarters at her apartment—folded and shoved under the sink.

I’d meant to grab it.

I didn’t.

I left it there like a breadcrumb trail for the undead.

“How did she find us?” my father asks.

I already know.

The alarm keeps shrieking.

SLOA members start muttering.

Shouting.

The sound drills into nerves like chalk on a chalkboard.

“What is happening?” Captain Hook asks

“Why is the system screaming at us?” Dr. Slice screams

I turn to my father. “I need to tell you something.”

“I left my bag with directions back to SLOA in her bathroom that night.”

My father stares at me.

He closes his eyes.

Slowly.

Like a man watching his life choices queue up for judgment.

My grandfather strides over. “What the hell is going on?”

My father doesn’t look at him. “Ask Erin.”

My grandfather turns to me. “Why is the damn alarm going off?”

I don’t soften the truth; I say it.

“I didn’t just leave my masks behind,” I say. “I also left my bag.

With directions.

Now Megan is here.”

I show him the feed.

He does not laugh.

He does not sigh.

He exhales once through his nose and raises a hand.

“The Wolf,” he says.

A slasher steps forward out of the darkness as he grows there.

Tall.

Broad.

Swathed in bands of leather and old scars.

His mask looks like something skinned rather than carved.

The kind of man who doesn’t rush because nothing has ever escaped him yet.

I’ve always liked The Wolf.

He never wastes words.

My grandfather gestures to the screen.

The Wolf nods once.

He recognizes the mask immediately.

Then he looks at me.

And shakes his head.

That hurts worse than yelling.

He disappears toward the back entrance, moving with the calm confidence of someone who believes surprise still works in this world.

The moment he’s gone, Megan speaks.

Her speech slips through the system like silk through a blade.

“Killers know killers,” she says.

Her vocal expression turns playful.

Darling Erin and his slasher family.”

“I’m not present to battle,” she continues. “I’m here to offer… growth.”

No one moves.

“I can turn you,” she says. “All of you.

Vampires kill far more than slashers.

No aging.

No sloppy cover-ups.

No burnout.

We don’t count bodies; we count centuries.”

Her voice carries confidence and sends a chill down the spine.

She taunts the SLOA members, revealing her deeper intention: “Imagine a world where fear no longer dominates your lives, where you move in shadows unfettered by mortal concerns.

Joining us means transcending outdated traditions that cage your potential.”

Just outside, the silhouettes of her vampire army begin to materialize, their eyes aglow with animalistic hunger.

It’s a glimpse that hints at the scale of the threat, the darkness gathering at the threshold.

Then, in the hush, The Scarlet Butcher raises a tentative hand.

“Do you offer a dental plan?” he deadpans.

“Because I’ve seen what happens to fangs after a few centuries.”

Megan grins, fangs on full display.

“Of course. Also, vision benefits. Night vision, obviously. And free capes—one size fits none.”

Stillface squints and shouts from the back, “What about sunlight exposure? Is there an SPF, or are we just talking hats?”

Megan tilts her head.

“Sunlight’s an acquired allergy.

But you get a deep discount on blackout curtains and a complimentary subscription to Vampire Yoga.

Vinyasa at midnight.”

Someone asks, “Anything for pet allergies? Half of us are allergic to those werewolf types.”

She smirks.

“No, but you get free streaming of classic horror movies, a starter coffin, and an app that lets you schedule your brooding sessions.”

A ripple of uncertain approval stirs through the room before my father cuts it short with a glare.

But for a moment, everyone looks tempted by the ridiculousness—all those little absurd immortality perks—until reality floods back in.

She laughs.

“Oh, where do I start?

Night vision that works.

Healing that doesn’t itch.

Power without the cardio.

And we never have to crawl under cars looking for dropped knives.”

I flinch.

My father snorts. “Nuts.”

My grandfather straightens. “Thank you,” he says calmly, “but no thank you.”

The lights flicker.

Megan steps forward out of the dark, her mask still on.

She tilts her head. “Do you remember Francis?”

She directs the question at my grandfather.

The name hits my grandfather like a gut punch.

His face changes.

Goes distant.

Old.

My father and I are shocked by his silence.

I open my mouth to ask who Francis was

Then the camera jolts.

The Wolf appears in frame behind her.

For half a second, relief is there for all of us.

Megan moves.

Fast.

Too fast.

The feed fills with motion and blood and a noise resembling wet fabric tearing.

The Wolf doesn’t even finish raising his weapon.

She kills him first.

Efficiently.

Almost politely.

She removes the mask.

Fangs.

Red eyes.

A smile that does anything to anything human.

“That,” she says softly, staring straight into the camera, “was not a good idea.”

She leans closer.

“I gave you a free choice,” she says. “Now the choice has been made for you.”

The screen shakes.

And then we hear it.

Hundreds of footsteps.

On the roof.

Not running.

Arriving.

FRANCIS

The footsteps thud on the roof, then scatter like rats across the roof in different directions.

My father looks up at the roof.

“Shit.”

He turns to the room. “We’re going to have to fight.”

Immediate backlash.

“We came for a meeting,” The Parking Lot Phantom snaps.

“I left my good knife at home,” Stabby McDeadline screams.

“This is not what the agenda said,” The Compliance Officer says, waving a printed copy, as it might still save them from fighting.

My father spreads his hands. “We are being attacked in our own clubhouse.”

“That’s on you,” the Muffler says, pointing at me. “Your son picked a fight with a psycho vampire.”

“I didn’t pick—” I start to say

“—doesn’t matter,” my father cuts in. “We’re here now.”

Uncle Cleaver sighs from the back. “Fine. We fight. But afterward?”

He jabs a finger at me. “Erin’s banned if we make it out alive.

A wave of agreement rolls through the room.

“No more meetings.”

“No killing attempts

“No more ‘being a slasherslasher ‘n do it without SLOA”

My father nods. “Agreed.”

His agreement stings me.

The video feed flickers back to life.

Megan smiles from the screen like she’s hosting an after-hours talk show.

“So,” she says lightly, “before you die… why don’t you tell them about Francis?”

She looks straight at my grandfather.

My father swears and starts barking orders.

He and the others rush toward the weapons room, arguing about who gets what and whether anyone remembers anything that happened this decade.

The door slams.

Silence drops hard.

It’s just my grandfather and me now.

I swallow. “Who’s Francis?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

He watches the dark ceiling, as if he expects a vampire to break through the roof.

Then he sighs.

“Summer of 1956,” he says. “I met a girl, her name was Francis, this was before your grandmother.

“She was English. Pretty. Polite. Wore black like she was mourning the sun—long sleeves in August. Sunglasses day and night, I found it cute and endearing.

I blink. “That’s… not subtle; that is definitely vampire vibes.”

He agrees. “But I was young and stupid and did not believe in the supernatural.”

We met at night. Always at night. Walked by the water. Sat too close. Talked about nothing and everything. She laughed at my jokes, even the bad ones, which should have been the first warning.

“One night,” my grandfather says, “I decided to tell her the truth. About what I was. About what I was training to do, what our family legacy was.”

I lean forward.

“I had just opened my mouth,” he continues, “when two figures stepped out of the dark.”

The lights flicker.

My heart jumps like it’s late for something.

“They wore black. Head to toe. 1940s clothes. Real old-fashioned. Like a funeral decided to walk.”

Francis smiled.

“She introduced them. ‘My sister, Megan,’ she said. ‘And my brother, Franklin.’”

Something bangs overhead. Hard.

I whisper, “Is Megan the same—”

“Yes,” he says. No hesitation. “Same face. Identical voice. Same sick sense of humor.”

Francis, Megan, and Franklin wanted to turn me. Said he’d be perfect. Said killers made the best vampires—already comfortable with blood, already good at secrets.

“They promised eternity,” he says. “They lied about the rules.”

He laughs once, short and dry.

“I ran.”

Of course, he did.

“They chased. Franklin caught. I go first. Big mistake.”

The way he says it makes my skin crawl.

“I killed him,” my grandfather says. “Not clean. Not heroic. But permanently, I used brute strength and a sharp piece of wood through his chest.

The roof creaks.

I understand it then. Not all vampire stories are lies. Just edited.

Megan didn’t stumble onto us.

She waited.

She followed.

She planned.

I look back at my phone.

The feed is empty.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

A knock sounds at the window behind us.

Tap. Tap.

Megan stands outside the glass, mask off, fangs bright, eyes radiating a heat-red glow.

She laughs.

And somewhere above us, the footsteps start moving faster and harder.

HUNGER IN THE ROOM

Behind her, the night pressed flat against the glass.

Megan didn’t try to hide what she was.

She stood there in her full vampire form, calm and unbothered, like this was precisely where she was supposed to be.

Her eyes were red and focused; the look predators get when they’ve already made their decision.

One hand rested on the window frame.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Slow. Patient. As if she were checking whether something was ready.

Then my father came back with the SLOA members.

They brought weapons with them. Real ones. Heavy ones. The kind that ended any illusion that this was still a meeting or a discussion.

The members spread out into a rough semicircle, each holding something sharp, blunt, or ugly. It looked less like a coordinated defense and more like a group of men who had grabbed whatever they trusted to do damage.

A machete that looked contractually obligated to be there.

A crowbar, because every slasher apparently shops in the “projects that went wrong” aisle.

A hunting knife so long it felt like it came with emotional baggage.

A chain with a padlock, which suggested someone had a very specific fantasy and no time to unpack it.

A wood-handled hammer—the weapon of choice for people who didn’t plan a murder but absolutely refuse to be unprepared for one.

And The Prowler, standing off to the side, gripping a serrated sickle—the weapon he truly wanted—but he got stuck with the lame gun and baton.

My father stepped in front of me and pushed an axe into my hands.

“Here,” he said.

The handle dug into the inside of my hand. The weight immediately pulled my arms down. It wasn’t symbolic. It reminded me how weak my muscles are when forced to matter.

Then he handed my grandfather his scalpel.

A small, light, and almost embarrassing next to everything else. It didn’t look in the manner of a weapon so much as a bad idea: no weight, no drama, no room for big heroic swings. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. You don’t need to hack vampires apart. Get close. Cut once. Let the rest take care of itself. My grandfather took it. His fingers looked stiff, like they didn’t quite belong to him anymore. He never took his eyes off the window.

“So, the plan,” my father said, voice-controlled, “is to aim for the head.”

I shut my eyes for a second.

Not because it was wrong. Head made sense. Final sense. But because I recognized the words. I’d said them before—too many times, probably—rambling about vampires, about lore, about rules. I hadn’t realized anyone had been listening.

For a second, I smiled.

My father saw it. He didn’t smile back. He just nodded once, like that was all the acknowledgment I was going to get.

The Prowler tilted his head toward the window. “What the hell,” he said, not angry, just genuinely unprepared for reality turning out like this.

Megan licked her lips.

Not playful. Not flirtatious. Hungry. Like an animal tasting the air once it knows the hunt is over.

She tapped the glass one last time. Then she lifted.

Not climbed.

Lifted.

Her feet left the ground. Her body rose smoothly, as if gravity let her go. Her hair floated up around her face, and for a second, I could still see the contour of her mouth before she disappeared above the window frame.

I fixed my eyes on the space she left behind.

My mouth went dry.

And because my brain never knows when to quit, I hear myself say, “Okay. Cool. So, Megan files.

No one laughed.

Another thud hit the roof. The building shivered as Megan landed. The smaller footsteps I’d heard earlier stopped completely.

Silence.

Then the banging started.

Not frantic. Not chaotic. Slow. Heavy. Deliberate. Like something large was testing the roof’s patience.

Dust drifted down. Tiny pieces of wood followed. My hands clenched tighter around the axe until my fingers hurt.

The roof groaned. Nails screamed. And then part of it gave.

The section collapsed in a violent crash, wood and plaster slamming into the floor. Dust exploded into the air, making everyone cough and blink.

And through the hole, they came.

Vampires poured into the room, fast and coordinated, landing with natural proficiency. Pale faces. Sharp smiles. The environment had altered—cold, stale, and saturated with death.

Megan landed first.

She positioned herself at the front, where she belonged.

“Aww,” she said, glancing at our weapons. “They’re ready to fight.”

Next to her, a vampire in a hood stood still. The rest of the clan held position behind them, alert, waiting.

No one ran. I’ll give SLOA members that.

The SLOA members froze, fear visible in the way they gripped their weapons tightly, but they stayed where they were. Ready to fight when the time came.

The hooded vampire lifted pale hands and pulled the hood back.

My grandfather inhaled sharply.

“Francis,” he said.

She smiled.

Francis didn’t look like Megan. Where Megan was polished and cruel, Francis looked worn thin by time. Her skin was pale and tight; veins faint beneath it. Her cheekbones cut sharply. Her mouth was just a little too wide. Dried blood marked one corner like she hadn’t bothered to clean herself up.

Her eyes were flat yet glowed red. Old. Tired of pretending this mattered.

“Hello, Lawrence,” she spoke quietly. “It’s been too long.”

“Not long enough,” my grandfather replied.

Francis looked at me next. Slowly. As if she were reading something written on my skin.

“So, this is him,” she said.

“Yes,” Megan chirped. “But he’s fun.”

I smiled despite myself.

Francis frowned.

“I have waited a long time for this,” Francis said.

“What took you so long?” my grandfather asked.

“We were young,” she said. “We had to build our clan. But we never forgot you. Or what you did to our brother, Franklin.”

Megan sighs. “And subsequently, I caught sight of him on Instagram.”

She pointed at me.

“He looks like you used to.”

That knotted my stomach.

“You don’t have his instincts,” Francis said. “That’s why this was easy.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“Well,” Megan said, clapping once. “Enough talking.”

She inhaled.

“It’s time to eat.”

The hiss flowed through the room.

My father moved ahead. “Heads,” he said again.

I clenched my hold on the axe.

The room got heavier.

And whatever woke stirring inside me didn’t feel brave.

But it is not done yet.

BATTLE ROYAL

The battle starts the way bad decisions always start in SLOA: with confidence, bad lighting, and someone screaming, “Heads!” like we’re in a cooking show.

Vampires continue to drop through the roof in coordinated silence—pale bodies, red eyes, mouths too calm for what they are—moving like gravity is a suggestion. My father, Hollowface, drives his axe into the first one’s collarbone and yanks it back like he’s correcting a spreadsheet error. The Scarlet Butcher barrels into the mess with a cleaver and a grin that says he’s been waiting all year to justify the nickname. The Curator ducks under a clawed swipe and stabs upward with something thin and elegant, like she’s pinning a moth to a board. Dead Air swings a chain-and-padlock combo like he’s at a gym that only trains for murder. The Velvet Knife slides past someone’s teeth and mutters, “This is why I hate networking,” before he cuts a vampire’s wrist open and black blood sprays like bad ink.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a gray-looking vampire—male, stringy blond hair, skin like wet paper—gliding toward my grandfather. He doesn’t run. He doesn’t rush. He advances in that slow, starving way that says he believes he has time.

My grandfather raises his scalpel.

A Scalpelan with a scalpel should look ridiculous. In real time, he looks like a retired surgeon who wandered into a war and decided to improvise.

I move before my brain finishes panicking. I race forward with all the might I have and swing the axe.

The ax head hits the vampire in the stomach with a dull, heavy thunk, meat meeting metal. The vampire hisses and jerks back as steam pours off the wound, along with a thick black substance that looks like blood got tired of being red. Silver repels them, and the wound reacts as if it had just touched a hot stove. The flesh bubbles. The air stinks.

My grandfather turns his head slightly, eyes sharp behind the mask, and he smiles like he’s watching me finally figure out how to tie my shoes.

“Finish it,” he says.

I stare at him for half a second because this is my grandfather, and we are discussing finishing things like we’re at a barbecue.

“Finish it,” he repeats, louder.

I draw in a deep breath. Then I force the axe deeper, harder, until I feel tendons tear and muscle give with that wet, awful resistance that makes your stomach try to leave your body. The silver makes the wound hiss louder, the sound high and angry, like the vampire is boiling from the inside out. The creature moans, tries to claw at me, and I push the rest of the blade through with a new strength I don’t remember having.

The axe bursts out of its sheath.

The vampire splits and drops into two ugly pieces. The top half keeps hissing and twitching like it refuses to accept the concept of “done,” while the legs kick on the floor like they’re still looking for instructions. Black blood pools fast, spreading under my shoes.

My grandfather smiles again.

“Finish it,” he says—because of course he does.

“I’m not my father. But maybe I’m something else. Maybe that’s enough.” I think to myself. A dark blur slams into him before I can move.

“No!” I scream, and the word tears out of me like something got ripped loose.

I lunge forward—

—and the half-vampire I just cut in half grabs my ankle.

Of course, it does.

Its fingers clamp down like a steel trap on my right ankle. The vampire fingers clamp down like a steel trap. The creature drags me backward with a strength that shouldn’t exist in something missing its entire lower half. My axe slips from my hands and slides across the floor, disappearing into the chaos of the battle. Francis looks like hunger wore a body. Her skin pulls tight over bone, her mouth too wide, her eyes ancient and flat and glowing red. Saliva threads between her fangs when she smiles.

“I have waited a long time for this,” she hisses, her quiet voice enough to feel intimate, which is somehow worse.

My grandfather can’t move. She straddles him, pins his arms and legs like she’s done this a hundred times, and never once feels rushed. His eyes lock onto mine.

The half-vampire yanks me closer. Its mouth opens. I see teeth. I feel saliva drip onto my pant leg.

Great. I’m getting murdered by leftovers.

I reach out for the axe. My fingertips brush the handle.

Megan’s laughter cuts through the room, bright and delighted, like she’s watching a live show she paid for.

Francis tilts her head toward my grandfather’s neck, eyes shining.

“Any last words?” she asks.

My grandfather looks her straight in the face and says, calm as teatime, “You’re an ugly fucker.”

Francis laughs.

Then she glances up at the roof, where more footsteps scrape and reposition.

“This is going to be so great,” she says, like she’s planning a party.

“No!” I scream again, and this time, everything slows. My mouth forms a circle around the word. My chest feels hollow. The vampire’s grip tightens and hauls me closer, its breath cold and sour.

My fingertips cling to the axe handle.

I get an urge—pure animal, pure panic.

I kick my free leg up and slam my heel into the half-vampire’s chin.

The grip breaks.

I spring forward.

I snatch the axe with one hand, pivot, and swing—clean, brutal, perfect. The blade severed the vampire’s head in a single swipe. There is a shocking burst as cartilage pops like wet twigs, and black blood splatters across the floor, my arm, and my clothes. I don’t feel in control. I feel like the slasher legacy of my family is finally pumping through my veins.

Francis’s mouth hovers inches from my grandfather’s throat.

I don’t aim. I don’t plan. I throw.

I hurl the axe at Francis, and the world seems to stop breathing momentarily.

The blade slams into her side with a sound like wet wood splitting.

Francis screams.

Not human. Not even close. Francis screams like a wounded animal that’s furious it can feel pain. Her body jerks away, and my grandfather—old, stubborn, unreal—shoves her off with a burst of strength that makes no sense and yet makes perfect sense, because he refuses to die.

He scrambles up faster than he should be able to and rushes toward me. We get a single second to understand what we just did.

We’ve lost members.

So have the vampires.

The room looks like a ruined office party: bodies, weapons, black and red blood everywhere, chopped heads of vampires, every SLOA member breathing too hard like they just ran a marathon they didn’t sign up for.

The Hacker stands a few feet away, covered in black gore, expression focused and thrilled in the worst possible way. The man loves to kill.

The Hacker thrives in combat, even against vampires.

He’s going to break the record tonight, even if he must do it by decapitating an entire undead clan.

“Good job,” I shout. “Take off those heads!”

He gives me a thumbs-up as if I just reminded him to hydrate.

My father finishes off a vampire in front of him—one brutal chop to the neck—and he stands there heaving, black blood dripping off his arms and mask. He looks like he fought his way out of hell and hates that he had to do cardio for it.

That’s when the SLOA door explodes inward.

Wood splinters. Locks snap.

The Wolf steps through the doorway.

Except he’s not alive.

Not anymore.

He moves with smooth steadiness—eyes lit red, mouth faintly smiling—like Megan didn’t kill him so much as recruit him.

The undead Wolf lifts his head. He hissed, showing his massive fangs.

He looks at us like we’re meat.

And somewhere behind him, I hear Megan laughing again—soft, delighted, certain—like she just turned our worst night into a sequel.

WOLF VS HACKER

The Hacker pivots without hesitation.

No warning. No words. Just a sharp turn of the shoulders, like the Hacker’s body recognizes the Wolf before his mind has time to argue. For a split second, I see them the way they used to be—standing side by side at SLOA meetings, arguing about blade angles and rust prevention like they were hosting a TED Talk for psychos. They drank burnt coffee together. They corrected each other’s posture. They once lectured a room full of killers on why dull weapons were embarrassing.

Now the Wolf stands across from him, undead eyes glowing, head tilted at an angle that’s all instinct and hunger. The Hacker tilts his head back the same way.

They lock eyes.

Then they run.

They slam into each other with the sound of a car crash. Bone, steel, and fury collide. The Hacker swings first. The Wolf blocks with his forearm, as if pain were optional. The impact echoes through the room. They separate, circle, then crash again. Every strike lands heavy—no wasted movement. No flourish. The Wolf and Hacker aren’t fighting for dominance. It’s a fight for closure.

I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until my chest starts to burn.

“Look out!” my father shouts.

I barely register the warning before he’s there—fast, precise. His machete comes up just in time to block Francis’s axe inches from my face. The blades collide with a violent clang. Sparks explode between them, bright enough to sting my eyes. The force of it jolts through my arms even though I’m not the one holding the weapon.

Francis leans in close, hissing directly into my father’s face. Her breath smells like rot and iron. Her eyes are wild now, no patience left.

Then my grandfather moved.

I almost miss it because it’s so quick. The scalpel flasScalpelmy grandfather’s hand, small and sharp and certain. He steps in close—too close—and starts stabbing. Not wildly. Not desperately. Clean, controlled jabs to Francis’s torso. One. Two. Three. Each strike lands exactly where it needs to. Steam pours out of the wounds like she’s springing leaks. She shrieks with every hit, stumbling backward, fury replacing confidence.

The axe slips from her hands and clatters to the floor, slick with black blood.

I don’t think. I grab it.

The weight almost pulls me forward as I swing. The blade slices through the space where Megan’s head was about to be. She hisses and jumps back, eyes snapping to the axe like it personally offended her. Her smile is gone now.

Behind me, my father is already moving again. Another vampire lunges at him from behind. He pivots and drives the machete straight through its chest. The vampire screams as steam and blood burst out together. My father yanks the blade free and, without breaking rhythm, swings upward.

The head comes off clean.

It arcs through the air, spinning, black blood spraying in a wide, ugly fan before it hits the floor with a wet crack. Megan and Francis hiss together, the sound sharp and furious.

Across the room, the Wolf slams the Hacker into the floor. The impact knocks the wind out of him. The Wolf straddles his chest, claws raised. The Hacker jams his forearm up just in time, metal screeching as claws scrape against steel. He twists, bucks, and rolls. They slam into a chair, crushing it to splinters. The Wolf howls and throws him again.

I force myself to move.

One of the SLOA members goes down near the wall. I sprint, scoop up what he dropped—a massive kitchen knife, the kind meant for turkeys and poor planning—and bolt back toward my grandfather. A vampire leaps at me mid-run. I duck, heart slamming, pressed to my ribs. I feel the air shift where it misses me.

My father takes its head off in one clean chop without even looking.

Megan screams. Francis screams louder.

The Hacker finally turns the tide. He hooks the Wolf’s leg, yanks hard, and sends him crashing onto his back. He plants a knee in the Wolf’s chest and stands over him, breathing hard, blood streaking his arms. For a second, he hesitates. I see it—the trace of memory, of lectures and coffee and shared routines.

Then he raises his weapon.

He brings it down.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Bone gives way with a sound I feel in my jaw. After the final chop, the Wolf’s head rolls free and bumps to a stop near the wall. The body goes still.

The Hacker straightens slowly and turns toward Megan and Francis, chest heaving.

They stand together now, united. Their eyes glow brighter. They hiss as one. Francis looks straight at me and smiles.

“This is not over.”

“We could have ended you tonight. But we wanted you to know fear first. Consider this your invitation to the new world order.” Megan adds. Then they leap—both—back through the ruined roof and vanish into the night.

The silence they leave behind is worse than the noise.

The room smells like smoke, blood, and something burned that shouldn’t burn. My hands shake. My axe drips black onto the floor.

We’re still standing.

And I don’t know yet whether that’s luck—or a warning.

THE WATCHERS

The cleanup crew for massacres arrived like clockwork, their vans unmarked and their jumpsuits a bland gray that screamed: “nothing to see here.”

SLOA’s go-to disposal team, a bunch of ex-military types who treated guts like spilled coffee, fanned out across the shattered clubhouse.

They hauled headless corpses out back, to the woodchipper, but my father stopped them mid-drag, his voice cutting through the grunts and clanks.

“Hold up,” he barked at the lead cleaner, a burly woman with a clipboard and a no-nonsense glare.

“Burn every last bit. Heads, torsos, the works. Torch it all until nothing but ash remains.”

The woman paused, eyebrow arching.

“Standard protocol is shred and scatter. Why is the bonfire special?”

Father jerked a thumb my way.

“Because Erin here clued us in. These fang-freaks don’t stay down easily, even when decapitated. Fire’s the only sure bet.”

Grandfather chimed in, directing two guys wrestling a limp vampire arm.

“Stack them tight, douse them heavily with that accelerant. No shortcuts—Erin’s intel saved our hides once; let’s not test fate twice.”

The crew nodded, adjusting their plan without fuss, flames soon roaring up, crackling with an unnatural hiss as black blood boiled away.

Their remains popped and sizzled, like they fought the fire itself, ensuring no undead surprises later.

I watched from the sidelines, my hands still sticky with residue I didn’t want to think about.

The air thickened with smoke that carried a metallic tang, a reminder that vampires didn’t go quietly, even in death.

Pride swelled in my chest, warm and unexpected, chasing away the ache from bruises I hadn’t cataloged yet, as surviving slashers echoed the orders, crediting my hunch born from dusty lore.

Their words landed like validation I hadn’t realized I craved, turning the chaos into something almost worthwhile.

Then I spotted the figure in the corner.

Bald head gleaming under the flickering lights, crystal-blue eyes locked on us, a robe draping their form like forgotten monastery garb.

Not sure if male or female—the features blurred that line, soft yet angular.

They sat still, smiling in a way that felt too knowing, too pleased with our little family moment.

I nudged my father.

“You see that person over there?”

He squinted, then shook his head.

“No clue. Cleanup crew?”

Grandfather peered closer.

“Doesn’t ring a bell. Stay sharp.”

“I’ll go check it out,” I said, curiosity overriding the smart choice to ignore strangers in robes.

They exchanged glances but nodded.

“Go on. We’ve got the fire under control.”

I crossed the room, dodging a mop bucket sloshing with inky runoff.

Up close, the smile widened, inviting yet edged with secrets.

“Hello,” they said, voice smooth as polished stone.

“I’m Eivor.”

I stopped short, glancing around to ensure no one eavesdropped.

“How’d you get in here? And why are you staring at us like we’re the main event?”

Eivor leaned forward, those blue eyes piercing.

“I’m a Watcher. We’ve observed from shadows since fear first flickered in mortal hearts.”

I blinked, myths from old SLOA tales rushing back.

“Watchers? Like the gods who control fear?”

Eivor nodded.

“We emerged when the world was young, guardians of terror’s balance. Fear fuels life—sharpens instincts, binds communities—but unchecked, it devours. We measure it, guide its flow, and ensure no force hoards it. Beyond that, we maintain equilibrium between good and evil, preventing one side from overwhelming the other, lest existence tilts into oblivion.”

“And vampires?” I pressed, voice dropping.

Eivor’s expression darkened.

“They twisted our gift. Born from ancient curses, they siphon fear eternally, disrupting the equilibrium we maintain. We tolerate them in shadows, but when they overreach, we intervene.”

My mind raced, connecting dots from vampire legends I’d devoured.

“So, the Twilight Guild’s moves…”

Eivor’s gaze intensified.

“Unprecedented. They’ve rallied clans, plotting to dominate. I’ve tracked you since childhood, Erin. Your spark differs—not slasher’s blade, but hunter’s fire against the undead.”

“You cannot forge a blade without fire. Sometimes, blood and chaos are the only crucibles that reveal a true hunter. I regret the cost, but the balance demanded it.” I stared.

“You set this up? Are Megan and Francis finding me?”

A nod.

“I guided their path to test you. Led them to SLOA’s door. You faced their savagery, rallied your kin. Passed brilliantly.”

Elation surged—myths breathed life, my purpose stretched beyond family knives—but doubt gnawed.

“Vampire hunter? Me? I’m the guy who trips on clown shoes.”

Eivor chuckled, warm and teasing.

“Ah, but hunters stumble into greatness. Picture it: you, dodging fangs with gadgets and grit, turning SLOA’s killers into an undead-busting squad. You’re a natural—instincts sharp as silver, heart fierce when cornered. Rally them; fear’s tide turns with leaders like you.”

Inspiration ignited, doubts easing under that encouraging glow.

“What’s the Twilight Guild after?”

Eivor leaned in, voice dropping to a grave whisper.

“Vague threads for now—swelling ranks, hunting a relic that bends wills, enslaving masses. They court werewolves, other beasts. Shadows deepen; revelations await.”

Excitement buzzed, visions of epic clashes dancing, yet glancing at Father directing cleanup and Grandfather tallying losses made support seem distant.

“They won’t buy in easily.”

Eivor placed a hand on my arm, steady.

“I’ll stand with you. Gather them; I’ll speak.”

I nodded, resolve hardening.

“Deal.”

The First Meeting of VHLOA

I rounded up the surviving SLOA members while the cleanup crew kept hauling vampire chunks to the pyre like they were moving furniture during a bad garage sale.

The flames were already licking high, popping and hissing every time another headless torso hit the pile, and the smell was somewhere between barbecue and regret.

My father—Hollowface—didn’t even need to raise his voice this time; people just drifted over, still wiping black goo off their masks, looking at me like I’d suddenly grown a second, more competent head.

The battle had done wonders for my credibility.

Nobody rolled their eyes when I said, “We need to talk.”

They just pulled up chairs, grabbed leftover donuts and cold coffee, and waited.

I gestured to Eivor, who stood calmly in the corner like they’d been waiting for an invitation to the world’s weirdest town hall.

“Everyone, meet Eivor.  They are a Watcher. Bald, robed, and apparently our new life coach.”

The Hacker snorted mid-bite.

“Life coach? Eivor looks like they just escaped a low-budget wizard convention. Did you forget your pointy hat at the dry cleaners?”

The Scarlet Butcher leaned forward, grinning around a powdered-sugar mustache.

“I’m just saying—if you’re going to drop apocalyptic news, at least wear pants. Robes are giving ‘I’m about to sell you essential oils and eternal damnation’ vibes.”

Stillface, deadpan as ever, tilted his head.

“Is the bald thing mandatory for Watchers, or did you lose a bet with the universe?”

Eivor’s smile didn’t waver.

“Appearances are temporary. Truth is eternal. Shall we proceed?”

The room quieted instantly.

Eivor’s voice rolled out smooth and magnetic, pulling every ear in the place like gravity.

“We are the Watchers. We have existed since the first flicker of good met the first shadow of evil. Our sole charge is balance—ensuring neither side consumes the other, because total victory for one would end existence itself.”

They paused, letting that sink in.

“Vampires were once a contained anomaly. Ancient curses given form, they feed on fear and blood, growing stronger with every life they drain. For generations, we allowed them their corners of the night. But the Twilight Guild has broken the accord.”

Eivor’s tone hardened.

“They seek a New World Order: humanity enslaved, minds bent, blood farms stretching across continents. They already hide among you—celebrities who never age, tycoons who vanish at dawn, politicians whose smiles never reach their eyes. We have names. We have watched. We have waited.”

The Velvet Knife raised a gloved hand.

“Wait. You’re telling me half my Netflix queue.”

Dead Air muttered, “Explains why certain rock stars look the same in every decade.”

Eivor continued without missing a beat.

“The Guild hunts an ancient relic capable of mass compulsion. They court werewolves—feral, moon-mad beasts whose rage could level cities if unleashed in numbers. This is no longer a skirmish. This is a prelude to dominion.”

A ripple of unease passed through the group.

Then Eivor turned those crystal-blue eyes directly on me.

“I have observed Erin since he was small.  He has never fit the slasher mold. His mind sought patterns, his heart questioned the legacy of SLOA, and other things. I knew Erin was different. So, I guided Megan and Francis here; they are the Guild’s most skilled hunters and attempted to bring SLOA into the Guild in 1956, failed, and have a personal grudge. So, I allowed them to test Erin and you, SLOA members. It was a test that you all passed with flying colors.”

The room went pin-drop silent.

“You passed,” Eivor said simply.

“Which brings us to the proposal: transform the Slasher League of America into the Vampire Hunters League of America. VHLOA. A force trained, equipped, and motivated to hunt the night’s apex predators.”

Silence held for half a second.

Then the Scarlet Butcher barked a laugh.

“VHLOA? Sounds like a support group for people allergic to sunlight and garlic bread.”

The Curator smirked.

“Do we get matching jackets? Or just therapy bills after the first full-moon werewolf chase?”

The debate exploded—good-natured, loud, and gloriously SLOA.

Dead Air: “I’m not wearing a cape. Capes are aerodynamic suicide.”

The Velvet Knife: “Speak for yourself. I look killer in silk.”

Stillface: “What happens when we run out of silver bullets and have to improvise with knives?”

The Hacker: “I vote yes so that I can finally update my kill counter to include ‘undead douchebags.’”

Someone in the back yelled, “Werewolves too? Those things don’t die easily—claws like kitchen shears and tempers like my ex.”

The room erupted in mock-horror groans.

Grandfather didn’t say a word.

He just leveled one long, steady look across the table.

The noise died like someone hit mute.

My father cleared his throat.

“Enough theater. Vote.”

Hands went up.

One by one.

Unanimous.

SLOA was dead.

VHLOA was born.

And somehow—I was president.

I stood up, palms sweaty, heart doing cartwheels.

“Okay. Wow. So… vampires are real. My late-night Wikipedia rabbit holes and dog-eared paperbacks weren’t a total waste of electricity.”

A few chuckles.

“I spent years thinking I was the family disappointment—the guy who apologizes to furniture and fails at basic stabbing. Turns out maybe the universe had other plans.”

I spread my hands.

“I’m not promising I won’t trip over my own feet leading you into battle against immortal glow-stick enthusiasts and werewolf rage machines. But I promise I’ll try. I’ll try to be the leader you deserve. I’ll try to keep us alive. And if we pull this off—if we stop the Twilight Guild from turning the planet into an all-you-can-eat blood buffet—then maybe, just maybe, I finally found the thing I’m supposed to be good at.”

I grinned, feeling lighter than I had in years.

“So yeah. Vampire hunters. Us. Let’s go ruin some immortals’ day.”

The room exploded in applause—loud, messy, proud.

Even the cleanup crew paused to clap, one guy raising a bloody mop like a salute.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like the punchline.

I felt like the beginning of something terrifying, ridiculous, and maybe—just maybe—heroic.

I’m Erin Roberts, Vampire Hunter, and yes, I’ll wear the clown shoes. 

End of Book 1

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