It was the full moon that was to blame. Its silvery glow hit his skin and completely changed him. She wouldn’t be surprised if he howled at the moon like he howled at his microphone, snarling into the metal, pulling back his lips in a twisted grin, baring sharp fangs used to feed on his unsuspecting victims. His fingernails were twisted into sharp points, hands and knuckles bruised. His hair stuck up in a million directions like fur on a scared cat, lining the sides of his face to mark the full transformation.

The room was dark and crowded and his nose twitched constantly at the variety of smells around him, his ears sensitive to every sound. She observed him from the back wall of the venue, afraid to get too close, horrified yet completely intrigued.

The show began; the crowd went wild. The instant surge of noise seemed to catch him off guard, overloading his sensitive ears. The walls resounded with the heart beat of the bass drum and the wail of the keyboard. He regained his composure quickly, twitching slightly before his long, blackened claws began to strum the metal strings of his guitar, the notes bouncing off of the walls and finding their proper place within her ears, the noises eerie yet entrancing.

When the show started, he commanded the crowd’s attention, craved it like it was an animal to be hunted, captured, and devoured. Swiveling his hips in a ‘come hither’ way, he tapped his long nails on the top of his metal belt buckle with a mischievous grin, fangs glinting underneath the stage lights in a way that made the girls swoon. But he didn’t seem to pay attention to the screams and shouts of the girls below him; he would look across the room at her, his yellowed eyes adjusted to the patterns of the light. She was far away and hidden in the dark part of the room and yet his gazes found hers with pinpoint precision, like a radar beam. His eyes seemed hungry, looking to her as his next meal, yet they had another feeling within them, a soft gentle feeling deep within those glistening depths. It must be a trick of the light, she thought, but he gave her more than one of these looks.

They played a few more songs but soon, the set ended. The crowd erupted into cheers; he swung his guitar around so that it laid flat upon his back and took a deep bow. By the time he raised his head, his band mates had already left the stage. But he remained glued to the spot, his huge yellow eyes boring into hers. She couldn’t look away.

Suddenly, he leapt off the stage, racing through the swarm of bodies. Her breath was trapped in her throat as she saw the faint glint of his fangs underneath the fluorescent lights. Once he had her in his sights, he grabbed her, his nails digging deeply into her flesh. They clamped down hard, gaining hold. She gasped. She was so close to him now, she could smell the coppery scent of dried blood on his skin. His fingers still caught within her flesh, he pulled his hand towards his chest. She could feel the sinews snap and the flesh tear as he ripped her heart out of her chest, taking the bloody, still beating muscle into his jaws and swallowing it whole as she watched on in horror. There was a huge gaping hole in her chest where the vital organ used to be, blood spurting out onto her clothing, dripping down her torso, and falling onto her shoes and the floor.

She wandered home in a daze, his growls and yelps repeating over and over in her head like a CD on repeat, his rabid smile all she could remember. She didn’t even know she got home, but somehow she managed, immediately dialing the phone to tell her best friend the story.

“Oh, love, you’re overreacting,” her friend told her with a giggle. “I met him before. He’s really not all that bad!”

She was quiet for a moment as she tried to imagine the vicious animal onstage as nothing more then a wide-eyed young man, tall and skinny, his hair combed down flat, his pale skin soft and smooth to the touch, small human teeth instead of menacing fangs, his lips a pale pink instead of red with her blood, smiling a sweet friendly smile instead of a vicious eerie grin. The thought of his lips made her stomach quiver, a strange feeling like soda bubbling over and spilling out of its bottle.

“You still there?” her best friend asked.
“Yeah,” she mumbled.
“What were you thinking about?”
“Nothing at all,” she said, less then convincingly.
Her friend laughed. “I think someone has a crush.”