Short Story : How to Survive Selling Internet to a Vampire
Do what it takes to get the Sale and Survive
One more house. The words were poisonously sweet as Vincent walked through the echoing halls of the Megablock. One more house then he couldget a sale, and go the fuck home. The soles of his feet burned and his hips, knees, andback screamed in agony. Walking for 16 hours a day, six days a week would do that.
You would think that selling Internet would be easy. And it usually was. Provided of course, you could build trust quickly and get them to schedule an installation appointment without a hitch. And hell, if you could sell three or four deals a day, you could make decent enough money to open up your own office in 3 months or so. Pyramid scheme. Of course, Vincent’s own mother threw the word around. As did many of his friends. But, since those damn AI’s went and crashed the stock market, no other place would hire him and if he could do three or four deals a day, he could pay the bills well enough.
Only, today wasn’t his day. Nor was the day before. Nor the last week. He knocked on the door of an old man he had gotten intrigued enough on his first round through the building. The cheap metal door rattled as Vincent rapped his knuckles on it. Silence. He rapped the door again before stepping back and the Old man answered. He was nearly blind. His eyes were albuminous which to be fair, worked well in Vincent's favor.
Vincent wasn’t much of a looker. Between his crooked teeth, a fat pudgy frame that jiggled as he walked, and a face that had seen the wrong end of one too many shovels, he knew from the way that people greeted him with veiled disgust that he threw them off a little. But this man wasn’t thrown off. He couldn’t be.
“How you doing sir?” Vincent said grinning like a practiced actor. Million-dollar smile and all.
The old man smiled in turn. “Oh…oh it's you.”
His teeth were missing in several places as he smiled, his pockmarked cheeks peeling back to reveal a mouth full of swampy brown pillars. Vincent suppressed the urge to wince as he continued. Sales was a lot like acting, you say your lines, and keep your facial expressions just right so that you convince someone you have known them for a lot longer than you have. Or trust you just enough to give you their money, at any rate.
“I was just wrapping up telling people about today’s Blacknet special and I was wondering if you had any questions.”
The Man paused for a moment, his eyes were filmed over like over-easy eggs. Vincent bit back his curses. This is why he hated dealing with Old people. The Old man was high out of his mind. Black rice. The latest drug whirling through The City. As such, he moved with almost glacial speed. Vincent’s mind drifted to what was left of the ice at the poles and reflected how they seemed to melt faster.
“No…” He finally said, “No… I still need to talk to The Lord Jesus Christ about it.”
Vincent nodded his head gravely though inside he seethed.
What the hell was talking to Jesus going to tell you about the internet? You either want it or you don’t. It was a decent price too; well below what you would pay if you walked into a Blacknet retailer.
But as always, he aired the man’s objections out like his apartment behind him which smelled of sweat, sex, and rotten eggs.
With the dedication that should have won him an Oscar, Vincent smiled.
“I understand, though,” He said. “It sounds like you do have questions. If you want to ask Jesus about it.”
The man paused again for what seemed like an eternity, “... Just the thought of…Watching…”
“I understand.” Vincent moved in and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and sighed.
“It weighs on you.”He nodded.
This place stinks like he just jerked off. Vincent noted, determined not to shake his hand afterward.
The man wept, “It makes me sin. Your internet makes me sin! So I want nothing to do with it!”
Despite that dramatic proclamation, he didn’t leave. The old man never sought to remove the hand on his shoulder nor did he say anything else.
Armed with lines he had said perhaps a million times before, he smiled. “Very well, I completely understand.” And all at once, the Old Man’s shoulders slumped under his hand.
Vincent backed away “I completely understand how you must feel. In fact, just the other day, I had another customer deal with the exact same problem only this time it was her twelve-year-old son downloading porno-sims, could you believe it?”
The lie came to Vincent as naturally as he breathed, for that woman pointed a heavy revolver at him and told him the next word out of his mouth would be his last.
The Old man was silent but Vincent carried on, “What she had found was with our unique filtering system, you could block that sort of content from ever being near you…if you want of course. And she hasn’t breathed a complaint to me since. Now when do you need a Tech to come out here?”
With a rehearsed smoothness he pulled his tablet up and said, “I could do one for Monday the second, or Tuesday. Which would work better for you?”
The Old man paused for a long while, before popping another black pill into his mouth. He chewed it with loud, wet smacks that filled the silence before saying with a grin.
“No…I think I’m okay.”
And this time, he did leave. The rusty metal door slid shut. And when the last echo died in the hallway, Vincent walked.
He was livid. He blinked back acrid tears. He still had one more door. He worked his mouth into a grin but it looked more like a grimace. Fuck, if he didn’t make a sale today, he knew he was going to get fired. He wasn’t much of a looker that he could work the street corners. And with his experience, it would be a long while before someone else could hire him. He looked at his faux-gold plastic watch. The face lit up and told him it was an hour to midnight. He had one hour left to keep his job. One more hour. One more house. He quickened his pace.
The apartment was far enough away, that whoever was inside couldn't have been in earshot. But they looked like they haven’t left in ages. Otherwise, they could’ve seen their their metal callbox had a large dent in it; like some asshole teenager took a metal bat to the box rendering the thing unusable. Not that Vincent ever used those anyway, he knocked on the door and waited.
Silence filled the building. The long, steady sort that lets you hear gunfire from the other side of the city. No doubt it was some fuckwit or the other shooting it out with the cops, at least before the self-defense system kicks in and reduces them to a bloody pulp, and before long, Vincent heard it.
The pitter-patter of distant submachine gun fire crescendoed in four loud shots of automated cannons. There was an explosion. Then the distant wail of car alarms.
Christ, this man was taking forever. So Vincent knocked again hoping beyond hope that there was someone home.
The door opened to the smell of dry-aged meat and impenetrable darkness.
Vincent rubbed his arms and shivered before taking a deep breath and getting into character. “Howdy!” he flicked his wrist in a mock salute and said, “I was just talking to some of your neighbors about our Blacknet special. You get a chance to look at it?”
There was no answer; Vincent knew he was shouting into the darkness but he had to keep trying. On the third attempt, he swallowed, for his throat was horribly dry, and he could feel his hands grow cold. He could feel a pair of eyes trained on him. Watching, and waiting.
Whoever lived here must have been wealthy. Vincent could tell the wealthier ones had two floors while the rest only had one. Something flitted through the darkness at the top of the stairs.
“Say, I can’t see you too great in the dark, do you mind turning on a light or stepping out here so I can see you better?”
There was no reply. A grimace almost escaped Vincent’s face.
Goddammit, I know you are home. No use pretending now.
The silence did not relent. For all his fear, Vincent crossed the threshold. He knew that was likely to get him shot but if he met his end by a bullet, that might have been better. But whoever lived here afforded him no such courtesy.
Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Vincent, regretted the trajectory of his life. He wondered if he pleaded with Kirishima hard enough, he might be kind enough to give him back his old job at the production line at Nagarjuna. But that would mean being pumped with nanites that would move his hands and limbs on his own while he worked there.
At the very least here, he could move his limbs as he wanted to. He just had to use Meitsuki recording implants in his eyes so that he could prove he knocked on the doors and said his lines like he was supposed to. Damn things weren’t cheap but they were the cheapest ones that Blacknet would accept. Though, his implants did come in handy. He blinked twice and his vision illuminated a night-vision green.
Next to the stairs was a long corridor And beyond that was darkness. Did someone actually live here? His implants did glitch from time to time. And in buildings as old as this, the doors opening due to circuitry malfunctions wasn’t unheard of. And if there wasn’t anyone here, the very least Vincent could do was go home, get some sleep and figure out what he was going to do next. But, as he turned to leave, the metal door beeped and slid shut.
He could hear them now: footsteps. Soft, so soft Vincent thought it might have been a cat. He felt something coming closer to him, the air reminding him of his stint in the mystery meat cannery. Foul, dense, and cold. A hand clutched at his throat so tight, Vincent thought it might have destroyed his windpipe but it didn’t.
Something with monstrous strength hoisted him off his feet and pinned him to the wall. Vincent saw it. Illuminated a pale green, he saw it: The creature’s skin was like cracked and peeling drywall. Its eyes were two dark blobs. And they were hungry. As was its mouth full of sharp, jagged yellow teeth.
His strength was beginning to leave his limbs as he attempted to kick the creature in the ribs but even if he had the strength, he felt like he was kicking cement.
Through gasps for breath, he said, “I..don’t…suppose you want to hear about our blacknet special.”
The words came as an instinct, drilled into his mind through months of mind-numbing repetition. They escaped him without him meaning to say them. Vincent didn’t know what was funnier, the fact he said them, or the fact that the creature stopped.
“What is this ‘blacknet’?” The creature said before dropping him like a bag of bones. Vincent rose to his feet, rubbing his throat, and smiled, the performance had already begun.
“Well, it is only the premier internet service provider here on the West Coast! I am sure you might have heard of us.”
But the creature didn’t smile, nor did it give any indication that it had, “What is this internet?”
Are you kidding me? Vincent bit the words back on his tongue.
But he bit too hard and that sour coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. And before he could work his mouth into words, the creature was on him again. With cold, marble-like fingers, it pried his mouth open, pinning him to the ground. Its tongue forced its way into his mouth, whiplike and leathery, wriggling between his molars determined not to let even the tiniest drops of blood go to waste.
Vincent jammed his foot into its hips trying to force it off but the creature didn’t move. When there was no more blood, its fingers went down to his neck in a grip of iron and razors with his monstrous strength and sharp nails before it let go.
“Forgive me.” It said, wiping its mouth with the back of its hand. “I was hungry.” its voice was more matter-of-fact than regretful.
Vincent’s hand went to the wound on his neck and it came away, warm and sticky.
“It’s fine.” The words were past Vincent’s lips before he could come to his senses.
He had been used to his fair share of strange customers. Junkies, Hookers, Factory workers, and the occasional Corpo middle manager. While occasionally they drew iron and shot at him, nobody ever violated him the way this man did. He was a man, wasn’t he? He certainly sounded like one.
As the Creature drew closer, Vincent raised his hand. “Just so you know… sir, I don’t really…” His voice failed him.
“I have no intention to copulate with you.” The creature raised a long-fingered hand.
Copulate? Isn’t that a fancy way of saying fuck?
The creature backed away, “it’s been a while since someone entered my home. Now, what is this about blacknet?”
Vincent paused before he got into character, ignoring the throbbing in his neck,
“Blacknet's only the best internet provider you can get on the West Coast.”
“Yes Yes, but what is this internet? My patience is wearing thin.”
Vincent paused, “How do I explain it? Think of it as an ocean that lets you know anything you want to know, and more, and a place where you can find anything you could ever want. But before I tell you more,” Vincent smiled “Why don’t you tell me more about yourself?”
The game had begun. The creature stared at him. His dark eyes were vacant and his mouth was agape in what Vincent could approximate as shock. “You… mean to sell me internet?”
Vincent wanted to run. He wanted to get away from this creature. But he needed to make a sale.
So he grinned, “Well you wouldn’t have kept me alive if you didn’t mean to buy some now did you?”
The creature laughed. It was a man’s laugh; the sort of man who smoked cigarettes for breakfast.
“You are perhaps the most intriguing piece of prey I have ever caught.”
Vincent smiled, hoping the man couldn’t hear the way his heart pounded.
“Prey? Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all? You a predator of some sort?” Vincent was playing dumb. He knew it was stupid to play dumb but what other choice did he have? This man was likely going to leave his body in a ditch somewhere when he was done.
But the creature smiled, “I am an… improved version of your race. Stronger, Faster, not to mention smarter.”
Shame you are not much of a looker then. Vincent thought but he kept that thought to himself.
“I see,” Vincent said.
Were it not for his peeling skin and his dark, hungry eyes, Vincent would have written him off as another race supremacist that seemed to fester in the poorer parts of the city. “So what are you exactly?” Vincent said after a pause.
The creature chuckled this time. “Silly me, I forget how thick-headed you humans can be sometimes. I suppose the closest thing you can compare me to is a Vampire- if you are so caught up in names. Now tell me, how do you plan to sell me this internet?”
“Sell?” Vincent sounded incredulous. “Mr…” He let the silence sit between them as he waited for the creature to offer its name.
When it made no such move, he smiled and said “I’m having a little trouble here. What do I call you?”
The creature sighed. “My master didn’t give me one. But if you must call me something, call me Svanir.”
“Oooh,” Vincent retorted, trying his best to sound impressed, “That sounds exotic, where are you from Svanir?” He leaned against the wall, being deliberate in how he used his name.
Before the creature could drop the conversation again, “You wouldn’t happen to be from the Norse Republic would you?”
The creature shook its head. “I was born in the nation called Sweden.”
“Wow,” Vincent whistled, “Now that is a name I haven’t heard in ages; not since the Nordics banded together to form a state for the ‘racially pure’ back in 2056.”
“Why do you need to know all of this?” The creature said. He drew forward. His ire began to rise. “I asked how will you sell me this internet, not to have my life interrogated by a mere-”
Vincent drew away, raising his hands and smiling, performing emotional alchemy for he could transform that black, leaden terror he felt in his bowels and his knees, into a golden smile. “Easy now, this is my answer.”
The creature stopped and Vincent continued, “I won’t be selling you anything. I simply believe we could have a conversation to see if Blacknet is a good fit for you. And if you want to buy it well, I can help you there as well.”
Svanir paused for a moment and laughed, “You really are amusing. Very well, you would require a drink would you not? Follow me. Let us talk. But I warn you human: The one thing I despise more than being balked, is having my time wasted and you are dangerously close to committing not one, but two transgressions against me.”
Before Vincent could open his mouth to speak, that hand shot at his face. His whole head fit neatly into Svanir’s hand like a boney basketball. His bullies back in Oakland would pop basketballs with knives to prove how tough they were. Svanir however just needed one hand. A burning pain filled Vincent’s head and he kicked and panicked. If he screamed he didn’t hear it. He only heard Svanir’s words,
“If you waste my time, I believe I make the consequences clear. Do I not?”
He held his breath and nodded without a word. It was the weakest he could afford to look. Svanir let go of his head and with a grin of a welcoming host, bid him to follow.
And Vincent did, painfully aware of how high stakes this performance was.
***
Svanir occupied one of the luxury apartments. Where most apartments were the equivalent of a small cramped room, Svanir’s was a palace by comparison. A fireplace flickered behind glass, bathing the room in amber light. A table stood crooked because the tile underneath was cracked. What was the living room was sparse save for a small couch that faced the TV in the corner.
Vincent took a deep breath to steady his nerves but almost immediately gagged at the dry yet faintly fetid smell that permeated the room. It filled Vincent's mouth with that taste like the smell of black salt. Black salt and dead rats.
Svanir noticed his discomfort and smirked. “I suppose you never smelled a corpse before.”
“A corpse…?” The words piece together that silent horror in the back of his mind.
Svanir’s laughter rippled through the silence. With a wordless gesture, he bade Vincent to look up. Vincent’s eyes adjusted. And he saw.
Corpses. All strung up by their feet like bats but that wasn’t the strange part. What was far stranger was the meticulousness of how they were all arranged. They were strung up based on how far they have been consumed. For on the far left were bones that have been picked clean. All ragged bones and loose wiring where the cybernetics once were. And on the far right, were corpses that were green or red or pale as the bodies began to dry age.
Vincent could feel his head spinning, swaying the way the corpses seemed to in the darkness.
“I am surprised,” Svanir’s voice brought him back to himself, “that someone who has lived as long as you have in this city, where not a single day goes by when someone doesn’t catch a bullet, cannot stand a rotting corpse.”
“Well,” Vincent worked up a smile, “I grew up on the banks of Laguna Lake, so I only moved here last year."
“Have you now?” Svanir said, smiling. “Well I hope this reiterates my previous point: I hate it when my meal wastes my time.”
“Of course,” Vincent said, he smiled back, mirroring Svanir, “And I hate it when customers waste mine. You strike me as the busy and orderly sort.” He spoke carefully, lightly, like a sculptor finding where the stone gives way under his chisel.
House visits while on the job were rare but whoever invited you, was almost guaranteed to buy. Not necessarily because they are interested but inside someone’s home is an excellent chance to understand the person and know exactly where to push.
Svanir raised an eyebrow “Indeed I am. I was engineered to be a king back in Sweden. And when you are raised to perform the duties of the state, you have no time to palaver with idiots.”
Vincent smiled and gave a half mock bow. “Well, should I call you your majesty then?”
Svanir shook his head and laughed, “That was a long time ago.”
Vincent prodded, both out of curiosity and as part of his script. “Well, what brought you here?”
“Why does it matter?”
Vincent shrugged, “It helps us figure out if this is worth our time. ‘sides,” He smiled and took a seat at the great metal table. He clinked his fingers across it and Svanir’s eye twitched.
In the darkness that cloaked them, he shouldn’t have seen it but Vincent noticed it. Annoyance flashed across his face but it was a spark in the dark.
Vincent clasped his hands and leaned forward, “I am awfully curious what a supposedly improved version of our race is doing in a Megablock meant for, shall I say, our less than affluent clientele.”
Vincent wanted to let the silence work there, but his mouth ran away from him. “Besides, how do I know you are a real vampire?”
It wasn’t a completely foolish question. In his time knocking on the doors of the City's poorest, he had met his fair share of strange characters, a woman so high on black rice that her skin had begun to burn but felt no pain because of how fried her nerves were. A man who swapped out his right hand for a cyber arm so that he could pleasure himself better, a neutrois who claimed to be the long-lost heir of the Nagarjuna mega-corporation. In such a light, why a man claiming to be a Vampire was one of a long line of delusional idiots. Only this one killed.
The question sat for a long while, Vincent held his relaxed yet engaged posture but clenched his hands together so tight the clasp was akin to a silent, desperate prayer.
“You humans never learn do you?” Svanir shook his head. His words were cold and exacting. “No, before you ask, I don’t have weaknesses to the cross or garlic and I very much can enter homes without being invited in. While you might reasonably assume the movies are full of lies, I wouldn’t know because as you might recall me telling you, I am not a vampire. At least not one of those fictional idiots you humans come up with.”
“But you do suck blood, like you did mine. And in our defense, sometimes it's just getting their heads cut off that gets them in the end.” Vincent reasonably said, “And there had to have been a reason for you coming here.”
Svanir’s ire didn’t wane. “You are right. I had no intention of coming to this city. But I didn’t have many other choices!”
Vincent did his best to suppress a grin. He found his line of attack.
“I see. So, do you have a phone by any chance Svanir?” Vincent blurted the words out. For a moment the thought seemed absurd. Nobody used a physical phone unless they were the old-school tech connoisseur type. Most people used chip interfaces. They wired straight to the brain, and a lot cheaper and could do almost everything a phone could.
But Vincent had a hunch. And sure enough, Svanir produced a black, monolithic brick. It was scratched. The casing was cracked from a very bad fall. But when Svanir tapped the side of the screen, it lit up.
“Excellent, so tell me Svanir, what did you use that for?” it was hard to contain the excitement in his voice. He relaxed his posture, leaning back and throwing his arm over the back of the chair. \
Svanir shook his head. “I don’t. This was a memento from my…father; the man who created me. He told me to keep it safe and that it might aid me in a time of need.”
And the fact that you kept it charged this long, and the door malfunctioning means there is electricity to this place. Vincent thought giddily. This sale was as good as made.
“Good, so are you aware you can purchase plane tickets online?”
There was a palpable silence as Svanir was stunned. “This little brick can allow me to purchase things? Does it not need my Biometric information to do so? Everything in this city requires it.”
Vincent paused. “Give me a moment.” He reached into the corner of his left eye. A trick he learned about his recording implants was that if he hit the factory reset button, the mics and camera took a good 20 minutes before they started recording again. So while he could not legally advocate actions that would reflect poorly on the illustrious and upstanding Blacknet corporation, it was a different matter entirely if there was no proof he ever did such a thing.
“Is everything alright?” Svanir asked there is an edge to his voice.
“No worries, I turned on the night vision earlier in the hallway when, when we first met, The fire has been killing my eyes.”
“Interesting,” Svanir said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t your implants dull your sense of pain?”
How would you know that? Vincent thought but didn’t voice it.
“Why do you think I am feeling it now? We have been speaking for a good bit.” Vincent smiled.
He repeated the process for his right eye.
“Now for the Biometrics, an internet connection allows you to connect to various people to help you spoof your biometric info. I can give you the names of some of the few my clients are the happiest with. Tell them Vince sent you.” Vince gave him a wry smile. “Still, I am surprised that you never knew about the internet but you know about implants.”
“Well let’s just say I learned a fair amount from my prey and the city outside. The internet was merely another way to expose me as far as I learned, I figured you might tell me something I was missing.”
Vincent was silent for a long while before he said, “You must have been desperate to leave. ”
Svanir fell silent. His expression shifted in the shadows of the faux fireplace through surprise, and aversion before finally settling on relief. “I was.”
Vincent smiled,” Well with this, I think we can get you out of here.” He took the same tone he took with old women who wanted to connect with their sons or daughters out of the country.
“To that end, I can help you keep yourself anonymous. Cause the number of corpses up there, I can bet people are starting to get suspicious.”
Svanir smiled, “You are rather observant.”
“Comes with the territory,” Vincent said.
“I’m telling you Svanir,” Vincent said grinning, “Stick with me, and you can get yourself a supply of people for drink and nobody none the wiser, and by the time they are, you will be gone.”
Svanir chuckled, “You really are the most interesting prey I caught. What is your name?”
“Vincent.” As coolly as Vincent said it, he could die from how happy he was. While people asked for names when they wanted to be courteous, the taciturn, standoffish sort might as well ask you to marry them if they asked for your name.
Now the finale. Fifteen minutes to midnight. Vincent smiled as he pulled out his tablet.
“When do you want a technician to come out here?” The words were out of his mouth. Rehearsed, automatic.
Svanir’s gaze was very different now. Cold fury and hunger. Vincent frantically worked the tablet.
“Erm I’m sorry, what I meant to say was I can arrange it for self-installation. Someone will leave the equipment in front of your door. Once you get it, call me, and I can help you get it set up. It should be easy for someone smarter than I. If I can do it, you can.”
The words did nothing to put Svanir at ease.
“Very well,” he said, but he waited. Waited for Vincent to say the wrong thing so he can rip his throat out and drain him dry.
“So when do you want the equipment delivered? I can either do it next week Tuesday or Wednesday?” Vincent tried to sound relaxed but Svanir didn’t relax either.
“Wednesday,” Svanir said.
“Gotcha,” Vincent swiped the options on the tablet. Often having to furiously re-swipe because of how sweaty his hands were.
“You are agitated,” Svanir noted.
“It’s ten minutes before my day’s over. If I don’t submit an order in ten minutes, I could lose my job.” That wasn’t entirely a lie but that was more so because he knew his optical implants would begin recording again soon, and he didn’t want to rehash anything that could jeopardize his job.
“I am going to say you will pay for it in cash on arrival.” Vincent said, “Cred chips are traceable. Cash is gone as soon as you spend it. Helps keep you safer.”
And finally, Svanir’s shoulders relaxed a little.
Vincent wiped his sweaty palm on his trousers before signing for Svanir. Not strictly compliant but his implants wouldn’t pick that up not for a little bit at any rate. He just needed to close this deal as quickly as possible before his rec implants came back online. Once he submitted the order. Vincent breathed a sigh of relief.
“You would find a package for you Wednesday next week,” Vincent said, without having to do much to summon genuine excitement.
Svanir smiled as well. It was a strange thing. He was a monster, seemingly incapable of human emotion save for those he performed to blend in. But at that moment, a monster that was so cold could be so genuinely warm. As there was relief, and joy on his pallid face. Vincent had to remind himself that this was a being that killed and that its joy, however real, was only ever concerned with itself.
“Of course, while the bulk of our business is concluded, we are far from done,” Vincent said. He was going to get Svanir in touch with the right people; help him forge his biometrics, and craft him a fake identity. Killer or no, on some level, it was his own misplaced sense of a salesman’s code of honor that made Svanir make that decision: you never outright lie or deceive your customers. Of course, small bends to make deals more palatable were acceptable, but when you promise support, you give it.
That was all until Vincent’s eyes hummed so loud that the high-pitched sound filled his ears. He blinked twice and saw the words across his eyes: recording in progress.
He tried to play it off, but Svanir saw the fear on his face. His cheeks pulled back and in a wide smile that emphasized the sharpness of his teeth, Svanir asked,
“Your eyes Vincent, why, they remind me of recording implants. Don’t they Vincent?”
“This isn’t what it looks like I can explain; I”
“Oh do go on Vincent,” Svanir said in a mocking voice. “Do explain to me why your heart beats oh so loudly? So loud that it's giving me a headache. When I grabbed you earlier, I noticed your irises looked like little cameras, Vincent. They recorded everything. Didn’t they?”
“No, I-”
“Come, Vincent, there is no need to lie.”
“No, I-”
“That’s why you fiddled with your eyes wasn’t it?” Svanir said. “Of course. I am not surprised. People in this city always want to enhance themselves in all sorts of ways. They break apart just as easily though.”
Vincent got up and started backing away, before he said, “Kill me and the recording will get uploaded to a central computer. You will be exposed.”
That was a lie of course. At midnight, a recording is sent to a central computer for review anyway, by now that recording would have been sent.
“You worry far too much for my safety, when you should be worrying more about yours,” Svanir said, he moved seemingly on all fours now, creeping ever closer to Vincent.
Vincent’s heart pounded in his ears. He knew the moment he tried to run would spell the end of him. The door was locked, and Svanir wouldn’t listen to what he had to say now.
For all the foolishness he knew it would bring, Vincent ran, Svanir was on him. He activated his night vision and ran headlong into the darkness. He felt Svanir’s teeth graze his ankle, and his claws graze his neck seemingly simultaneously. The one skill Vincent definitely gained working this job was the ability to run deceptively fast. Be it from gunfire, angry customers, or genetically modified pets, Vincent had an exceptionally fast fifty-yard dash.
As he turned the corner to go up the stairs, Svanir, climbed over the railing and blocked his way up.
“Going somewhere, Vincent?” Svanir mocked before he lunged at him.
Vincent’s legs gave out from under him, and Svanir sailed harmlessly over him, crashing into the metal door. The thud rang in Vincent’s ears but he willed himself to get up. He sprinted up the staircase and turned into what seemed to be a bedroom. He slammed his fist onto the button and the door shut. After fiddling a bit more, he pressed another button and the world lit a blood-red as the siren went off. The door locked itself shut. And the windows all shuttered. He covered his ears but even over the wailing siren, he could still hear Svanir banging on the door, each blow making the cheap metal door rattle as he hit it.
Vincent figured places like this had a shooter alarm. In the event of an active shooter, this would automatically lock all the doors unless they were disarmed manually. The good news was that Svanir couldn’t get in. The bad news? Well, that meant Vicent was trapped.
“Come on out Vincent,” Svanir said. His voice held no wrath to it, just the cold glee of a predator with cornered prey. “If you do, I promise I will kill you before I rip you apart.”
“Tempting offer but no thanks!” Vincent said breathlessly.
The door wouldn’t hold him. Vincent knew that. What’s more, he didn’t get a chance to see if there were other ways in. If there were, he was a rat in a steel trap.
When the banging at the door ceased, Vincent got up and looked around. The bedroom seemed scarcely used. The sheets were immaculately kept on the bed and reeked of the cheap detergent the sort of no-tell hotel rooms would use. There was a corkboard in the corner almost overflowing with pictures of almost every street, drug, store, and sign. Their order was lost to Vincent. Likely the creature didn’t know how to connect all of it himself. What the board did serve as was a place to gather intel. Anything Svanir learned about the city and its many denizens possibly ended up there. Underneath the corkboard was a row of samples.
All neatly laid out on the table, in clear plastic bags, were small samples of the drugs that you could find on the city streets if you knew where to look. There were of course the drugs that you could buy in a general store like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin but there were also the harder ones, like black rice, steklo (a Russian mob favorite), and even crocodile skin.
Vincent picked up the lighter and rolled up the papery crocodile skin. If he was going to die in here, he was at the very least die with a wicked high. ‘sides, skin peeling off during withdrawal couldn’t be much worse than getting ripped apart by Svanir.
Why are you so sure you’re gonna die? He asked himself. Nothing in his life seemed to go the way he wanted to. He wanted to run his own business but found himself massaging his swollen ankles every night with barely enough money to make rent. It was a miracle if he could keep his job after this. Why not just smoke it and let it all fade away?
Gunfire broke the stillness. A heavy revolver fired three shots, followed by a woman’s scream. Something snapped and crunched before a submachine gun fired and he heard bullets ricochet off the metal. People were outside trying to fight the damn thing.
Idiots! Go back inside! Vincent thought. Screams and gunfire poured out in all directions. Maybe just maybe if they could lead it out into the streets, the automated defense system would kill it? But that would mean drawing its ire. And holding it long enough for the cannons to fire at it.
Why did it matter? Vincent thought if this didn’t hurt him and his hide then did it really matter? He could just stay where he was. He was safe. And Svanir wasn’t focused on him. If those people could hold him off long enough, Vincent could escape.
He pocketed the lighter and the piece of crocodile skin and opened the door. Svanir wasn’t there. Instead, on the side of the wall were bullet holes. The door to the apartment was open and the hall outside was drenched in blood.
A submachine gun rattled close by followed by a loud sickening snap before going silent. Vincent crawled down the stairs like a child. Keeping low to the ground to avoid Svanir.
As he left the apartment, he saw him, his cracked peeling gray skin like rotting concrete. An old man hung from his teeth like a rabbit in a fox's jaws. Vincent shouldn’t have noticed them, but there were
places near his arms where the skin turned black, almost like burn marks. He saw Vincent.
Vincent ran for all the good it did. He bolted through the halls of the mega block, his footsteps echoing as he willed his legs to move. The elevator was too slow. He had to take the stairs.
Something struck him in the back. It was large and heavy yet oddly brittle. Vincent fell face-first down a flight of stairs. His mouth filled with blood. Sour, red, and tasting like battery acid.
Everything ached and even moving the body on top of him was a challenge. The old man’s glassy eyes stared back at him. Vincent shoved him, suppressing his urge to gag.
“You thought you could outrun me didn’t you Vincent?” Svanir said.
“Oh, I didn’t believe it for a second,” Vincent said, “But I had to try”.
“And you failed.” Svanir mocked before lunging at Vincent.
Vincent put his arm out to protect his face. Svanir bit hard into his arm and forced him down. He thought he felt Svanir suck but instead, he pulled with his teeth, tearing the flesh from his arm. The bastard was eating him alive. Vincent reached for something, anything and his hand clasped the lighter he grabbed earlier. Svanir reached again for his face but met the same arm. This time he cracked the bones of his arm between his teeth.
Vincent jammed the lighter in the monster's eye and squeezed. The skin around Svanir’s eye caught fire like dry leaves, and before he knew it Svanir screamed as he writhed in pain. Vincent crawled out from under him, his eyes staring at the coiling conflagration. Svanir may not have been weak to any of the more absurd weaknesses of Vampires but he burned. He burned well.
***
Vincent spent a few hours in the hospital. Since his health insurance plan was barebones, they couldn’t do anything but put a cast around his broken arm and give him a few painkillers. It would take a few months for his arm to be completely back to normal. But of course, he still had work in a few hours. On the bright side, for all of the times the cops searched him, they never found the crocodile skin. At least he had something to look forward to after work.
“Fuck,” He muttered to himself as he walked home to his apartment, hoping to catch at least a few winks. Were it not for the fact his rec implants recorded everything he saw and did, the cops wouldn’t have believed him. People kept asking for his statement that he made a copy of the incident on his cerebral hard drive to give any authority figure who asked. At the very least he didn’t have to talk.
Something wet clapped around his foot. It hadn’t rained. Vincent winced, scarcely wanting to guess what the liquid was. But in the puddle was a flier:
Build your own Sim. Turn any experience you had into something you can sell!
People in this city would do anything for a wicked high. Vincent knew that for a fact. People in this city would do anything to feel anything. And he did know how to sell.
Vincent fished the flier out of the puddle and called the number. To his surprise, someone picked up.
“Hi, I am looking to sell a Sim…”
___The End___
I liked reading it!