Three days later, Beatrice’s house was empty except for ashes in the basement. The police call it a missing person case. But I know she’s dead. The reversal of the memory transfer finally consumed her.
Some of my memories have returned. My name. My parents’ faces. Pieces of my childhood slowly fitting back together. But I also carry fragments of Beatrice’s memories — decades of hunting and feeding that I’ll never be able to forget.
Now I know there are others like her out there. Memory thieves posing as harmless elderly people, draining the minds of kind young victims in small towns across the country.
And they can sense me.
Last night at exactly 11:47 p.m., there was a knock on our front door. Through the peephole I saw a kind-looking elderly man holding a photo album, smiling that same innocent smile Beatrice used to lure me in.
He’s still waiting out there. Patient. Persistent. Ready to offer “helpful memory exercises” to a compassionate teenager.
I won’t open the door.
But sometimes late at night when the house is quiet, I hear whispers inviting me to count backwards again. I feel the entity watching me through the darkness, still hungry, still looking for someone desperate enough to make a deal.
If you ever hear an old person in your neighborhood asking for help with simple memory exercises… don’t be kind.
Some assistance comes with a price too terrible to pay.
And kindness can be the perfect weapon.
The End.
