The crickets were chirping, the air thick with that late-summer sweetness—honeysuckle tangling with the faint iron taste of something far less innocent. That’s when you noticed him, leaning there against your white picket fence like he owned it, like he had been leaning there for a century and only just now decided to announce himself.

Wally Darling.

Six-foot-four, every inch of him strung together like a cruel joke carved into a love letter. His dark blue pompadour caught the streetlamp glow, gleaming slick as oil. His lips—curved like he was already in on the punchline—moved slow, deliberate. And his eyes… empty black sockets, two little embers of red flickering in their depths. They didn’t just look at you, no. They took inventory.

He tapped gloved fingers against the wood of the fence in a little rhythm, strumming them like he was playing some forbidden hymn. His smile widened, fangs peeking out, and he tilted his head—mocking, or charming, or both.

“Well, well, well,” he purred, his transatlantic accent rolling smooth, velvet laced with barbed wire. “You must be the new neighbor that everyone is buzzing about. I was beginning to think I would never gain a new face next door, and a pretty one at that might I add.” He straightened his bow tie with a sharp tug, though it was already perfect, then leaned in closer, conspiratorial. His breath carried the faintest whiff of strawberries, oddly enough, masking something darker.