In every city there ever was, there has always been a 24-hour café.
It doesn't matter what they are called or whether they are French or if they launder money. They sell things, things like hot cocoa and coffee and baked goods, for prices varying from dirt-cheap to overtly expensive—and they remain open at all times and at all hours to anybody and everybody.
In North Canley, that café was the Midnight Coffee.
It was a cold night in early November, and the browning leaves outside were clinging to their trees for dear life. The breath of the stranger making her way up the steps of the Midnight Coffee was puffing out behind her like lingering chimney smoke. She pushed the glass door open, ringing the little bell hanging above it with a querulous ding which announced her arrival. She carefully shut the door behind her.
The clock above the counter read 11:28PM.
"Be right with you!" The voice which emanated from the back was young and cheerful, despite the emptiness of the café and the early morning hour. Just hearing it made the stranger's heart pound and her breathing quicken. "Just a minute."
The stranger unwound her thick scarf from her neck and seated herself at one of the scrupulously clean round tables. She waited.
A young man wearing a waiter's apron soon appeared behind the counter, wiping his hands on a towelette. "What can I do for you?"
"One coffee, please. Black." Her voice did not shake.
"Ooh, ordering a Midnight! Like our name." The young man busied himself with a variety of chrome machines which went whirr and pssh. "Yeah, not many people like the Midnight. Me, I’m more of a mocha person, but to each their own, right?"
The stranger studied her surroundings. A crooked painting of a vase of flowers was plastered to the wall on the far end, yellowed with age. A few of the lights were flickering precariously, threatening to go out. "How did you end up working here?"
"Between jobs at the moment, and student loans won’t go away by themselves." The young man grabbed a cup from a hidden drawer. "The opportunity came along, so I thought… why not? Pay isn't great, but it's nice. Don't tell my manager I said that, though." He laughed at his own words and turned back to the coffee machines. "She'd probably have my head for it."
The sounds of a lone motorcyclist passing by roared from the street, rapidly dwindling as it disappeared into the distance. The wind was picking up, and the stranger watched it blowing a collection of dry, browned leaves past the window, which danced on the sidewalk concrete.
"Coffee?"
She turned around, startled out of her thoughts. The young man was standing directly behind her with a white mug of steaming black liquid held in an outstretched hand. He was smiling slightly, which almost broke her heart.
She took the proffered coffee. "Thank you."
"No problem." The young man cocked his head at her. "What brings you in here tonight, anyways?"
The stranger took a sip from the mug. It was bitter and tasted like roasted soil. “A drink.”
The young man studied the stranger for a moment. He must have seen something in her which he disliked, because now a shadow flickered in his eyes which hadn’t been there before. His smile didn’t fade. “Anything else I can get you?”
The stranger swallowed. “No.”
“Alright, enjoy your drink, then.” The young man turned around and left, whistling a jaunty tune. The stranger watched the tail end of his apron disappearing around a corner into the kitchens in the back.
She was alone in the silence of the café once more.
The stranger waited, listening for any signs of life. When she was finally certain that she was truly alone, she reached into the inner breast pocket of her trenchcoat. Her clenched fist came out clutching a sturdy stick of wood, which had been carefully sharpened to a near-perfect conical point. She turned it over in her hands, inspecting it. This was a familiar motion, one which she had repeated many times over in the past month.
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She steadied her shaking fingers and stood from her seat. The scraping sound of the chair's legs being moved back was too loud and out of place in the quiet, and she was all too conscious of every step she took as she moved slowly towards the kitchens.
She turned the corner and braced herself.
Even with the lights off, she could see the vague outlines of the usual cooking paraphernalia scattered throughout the small kitchen: pots, pans, knives, and a stove. But there was nobody there.
“This is a restricted area,” said the young man from just behind her. His voice was pleasant, but it had an undercurrent of warning running through it. “Can I help you with something?”
The stranger spun around, brandishing the stick for a forward lunge, but she couldn't do it. The young man's eyes were boring into her own like drills, and all of a sudden her memories were threatening to overwhelm every piece of careful preparation and planning she had put into place.
She just couldn't do it.
"Ma'am?"
"Why?" The stranger kept her stick steady. "Nicholas, why did you do it?"
The young man blinked politely. "I'm afraid I don't—"
"Why did you kill them?" The stranger's voice was shaking now despite her best efforts. "I followed you for months. I saw you drinking from them."
The young man remained motionless.
"I was so worried when you disappeared." The stranger took a deep breath. "Nicholas, son, I always meant to make amends, you know that? But I can’t forgive this. What have you done?”
The young man’s face was blank and carefully unimposing. “Ma’am, I think you're mistaking me for somebody else. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Stop playing games with me. Was it your—” The stranger struggled to spit the word out. “Boyfriend? Did he influence you to do this? Did he tell you to kill people?”
“If you suspect that murders have been committed, ma’am, it might be best to bring your concerns to the police.”
“Stop. Playing. Games. Is this all a joke to you?” The stranger’s breath was coming in hard now. “I didn’t raise you this way, Nicholas. This isn’t you.”
The young man smiled. It was a slightly crooked smile tinged with sardonic wryness, which highlighted his dimples in strange ways. “Yes. I’m not Nicholas.”
The stranger raised the stick. “Have you no remorse at all, son?”
“I’m going to call the police.” There was a hint of warning in the young man’s voice now as he watched the sharpened stick moving in her trembling hand. “Please stop threatening me.”
“I don’t want to do this, Nicholas. I’m your mother, and I love you. But you can’t kill people.”
The young man shook his head. “Ma’am, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The stranger lunged forward and stabbed. The wooden stick slid between the young man’s ribs and into his heart with almost no resistance, and the stranger caught the young man in her arms as he fell backwards. His boyish face had a slightly stunned cast to it, and his eyes were already glazing over.
It was done. The deed… was done. The stranger took a deep breath, cradling the body of the young man, and allowed the tears to finally come. Her son. Her poor, misguided son, who had loved the wrong people and fallen in with the wrong crowd, could finally rest. He was as light as a feather with his innocence restored to him in his final moments.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The stranger looked around for the source of the noise, and realised that the young man was slow-clapping. He still had his arms clasped around her, and she could feel each clap against the small of her back as a series of reverberations going down her spine. She stumbled back and fell, hard, against the kitchen counter.
“The stake was a nice touch,” said the young man, pulling the stick out of his chest and looking at the blood on it with detached interest. “It was a good try. I think you’ve been watching a few too many movies about this kind of thing, though.”
“What are you?” the stranger whispered.
“Not what you thought I was, that’s for sure.” The young man tossed the stick aside. Suddenly, he was looming over her, and his eyes were pinpricks in the dark which shone with the swallowed light of everything in the universe. “It’s funny. You know, I just realised that you came here for the exact same reason I did.”
“To stop you?” The stranger was frightened, oh so very frightened. Her heart was hammering in her chest and everything in her blood was urging her to run, but the young man’s eyes were pinning her where she stood, rendering her legs useless.
The young man’s smile widened, showing teeth, and suddenly he didn’t look very young at all. “For a drink.”
The clock above the counter read 11:36PM. It was the only other thing, living or otherwise, to observe precisely when the screaming from the kitchens started that morning.
It read 12:00AM when they finally stopped.
"The stake was a nice touch." [https://i.postimg.cc/tC44jJ6x/vampire-male-silhouette-in-dark-kitchen-haze-ultra-detailed-film-photography-light-leaks-larry-3388.png]