“I didn’t choose this,” I whispered. Then, louder, as I worked up my nerve and convinced myself of what I was saying, “I didn’t leave a pathetic cop-out of a suicide note.” There were tears in my eyes as I started to shout at her. “I didn’t abandon my wife so I could live forever.” I twisted as much sneering disregard into the last two words as I could. “The man I married wouldn’t have, either.”

“So you killed your husband because he left you?” Her cordial tone was a mockery considering the wooden stake pressed against my skin. It burned, but didn’t ignite. Perhaps it wouldn’t until she stabbed me with it.

“He was already dead,” I insisted. I kept the fear from my voice, but couldn’t take my eyes off the stake.

“Tell me: do you feel dead?”

I breathed only to speak and I couldn’t feel a heartbeat. My eyes were subtly wrong and I wasn’t cold, though autumn nights in Iowa were. Despite those facts, I didn’t want her to pierce my skin with the stake. “I don’t feel human,” I said instead of an answer.