Suckers (12 page)

“You were passed out,” Ray said.

The bees were gone. “
What did I do?
”

“Shh. Are you okay now? Can I let go?”

He didn’t know. He knew he probably wasn’t going to do anything he’d regret—but he didn’t know if he was okay.

He sure as fuck was
not
okay.

“Are you okay?” Dan asked back. He felt trembly, his skin cold. He ground his temple against the floor.
Jesus what the fuck?

“I haven’t had a chance to check that yet,” Ray said.

Ray moved on top of him.

“I think I’m okay,” Dan said.

“Think?”

“I’m okay.”

“Don’t fucking move.” He shifted again, moving off him a little but holding him down. “Okay? Don’t fucking move till I get out of the way.”

“Okay,” Dan breathed.

The weight came off. Boots scrabbled across the linoleum, away from him. When they stopped, Dan planted his hands against the floor and pushed onto his knees. He hung his head for a moment, afraid to look.

Ray cursed quietly.

Dan sat back, hands on thighs. That smear of blood on the inside of his finger.
Shit.

And that’s what Ray said too, looking at his own arm, his lip curled as he squeezed his wrist. Blood dribbling between his fingers.

Ray’s bangs hung down, hiding his eyes until he lifted his head, looking at Dan.

Dan put a hand to his mouth, an old copper aftertaste there.

“What the fuck?” Ray pulled back against the wall, wedging his shoulder against the kitchen door. Blood oozed from the marks Dan’s teeth had made. “What the
fuck
is wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Dan looked around the kitchen. His kitchen. Normal kitchen, except for the mail splayed across the floor, the knocked-over chair. Otherwise completely fucking normal.

“You should clean that,” Dan said. He closed his eyes.
Peace
.
Quiet
.
So fucking good.
But he was shaking—what the fuck had he done?

“What the fuck is going on?” Ray asked.

He opened his eyes and looked around again. The door hung open, the traffic from the street louder than it should have been. “I forgot you were coming by today.” What would have happened if Ray hadn’t? How long had he been lying comatose? He remembered Janice leaving. Remembered pacing his apartment, the bees urging him toward the door, toward people, toward blood. Remembered even considering tying himself down to keep from running outside, scared of being that crazy person on the news:
He just grabbed the woman pushing her child in a stroller and started eating her face!

“I think I have a problem.”

“No shit?” Ray said.

“You should clean that out. I won’t come after you. I’m good right now.”

“I’ll stay over on this side of the room anyway, if that’s okay.”

They watched each other for a long stretch of seconds, until Dan said, “I don’t blame you.”

“What are you, a fucking vampire now?”

Dan pulled himself back, hugging his chest. “Vampires get cool side benefits. All I’ve got is bees.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Jesus—he didn’t remember anything. “Did you see them again? The squirmy things in my eyes?”

“I didn’t have time to examine you. As soon as I put my knee on the floor, you were coming at me. Barreled right into my chest. Fuck, man. Is it the same thing as before? On the bus?”

“Yeah. The same thing. It wants blood.” He pressed his hands against his eyes. “Blood shuts it up.”

“What the fuck’s ‘it’?”

“The bees. The buzzing. The headache. That fucking thing did something to me when it was on my neck. I knew I’d felt it bite me. It did something, and now everything’s all fucked up.” He slid his hands down his face. “I was stalking my neighbor this morning. I was going crazy, wanting to go down there and get blood from her. Jesus, she has this little girl…can you imagine if I had? This little girl watching her mother be attacked?”

“Much better you saved it for me. If we get in my car, could you ride the two minutes to the hospital without trying to kill me?” He pushed against the wall, getting to his feet, one hand still clutching his arm.

Dan gave his head a violent shake. He could absolutely make it two minutes to the hospital—if that first time he’d lost his mind was any indication, he could make it almost a week. That tech’s blood had kept the bees at bay awhile, unlike his own. But what would happen when he got to the hospital? What would they do with someone who attacked people to suck their blood? “I’m not going to the hospital.”

“Danny…”

They could feed him blood, there was that. Or they could refuse him blood, lock him in a psych ward, stuff him with pills. Strap him down to keep him from attacking the staff. Dope him up. Declare him violently insane, and he’d never see freedom again. Now there’s a life. As Ray tore paper towels off the dispenser bolted under one of the cabinets, Dan said, “There’s nothing about this on the internet except crazy people.”

“When they see what happens to your eyes—”

“Yeah, then they can say, ‘He’s not crazy, he’s just got some insane thing wrong with him. We’ll pin him to a board like a bug and study him. I’m good now. I just needed, what—a
teaspoon
of blood?” He couldn’t have gotten much more than that off Ray before Ray got him pinned down. “I’m
good
now.” His face prickled. He knew he was being an idiot, but Jesus. He did not want to go to the hospital. First they’d run tests, then they’d call in the shrink, then when they realized they had something real on their hands, he’d never see the fucking light of day again.

Ray crouched a good six feet from him, bleeding through the paper towel clamped over his arm, and Dan said, “What about the band? If I check into the hospital, what happens then? ‘Two Tons of Dirt Bass Player Afflicted with Mysterious Blood-Drinking Disease.’”

“What happens when you attack someone on the street and
that
makes the headlines instead?”

“Help me,” Dan said. “Keep that from happening.”

Ray clutched the bloodstained towel in his fist.

“I can’t go to the hospital.” That scared him more than the bees. The memory of stalking Janice through the floor was detached—ridiculous in retrospect. A dream he’d lived. He could keep this under control. There was no need to let it get this bad again, not if he had help.

“I don’t know what the fucking alternative is,” Ray said.

“It’s just a little blood. Just a taste is enough to shut them up.”

“
Today
,” Ray said.

“If it gets worse, I’ll go to the hospital.”

“You say now. You know who you sound like?”

Anger flashed. “I’m not fucking Jamie.”

Ray watched him a while longer, Dan feeling like that bug pinned to a board after all, until Ray finally stood and dropped the towels into the trashcan. “I don’t know, man.” He ripped a few fresh ones free, dampened them under the tap.

“
You
wouldn’t go,” Dan said. Ray hadn’t been to a hospital in his life, not as a patient. Wouldn’t even go to the doctor unless he was sure he’d just get a script for antibiotics and be sent home.

“Yeah, well,” Ray said, on his way to the door with the wet towels held to his arm. “I mind losing myself a lot less than I mind losing you. Give me a call if you need a ride to CMC.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Dan said as Ray popped the screen door open.

“Thanks for the hole in the arm.” Ray let the door slam shut behind him.

† † †

He had a week to figure it out, he figured. Less if he didn’t want to reach the point of stalking the neighbor again. Maybe he could pay for it—find a hooker, a druggie, give them some cash and a razor blade. Teenage girls cut themselves all the time. How big a deal could it be, aside from the risk of AIDS? It would be an awkward conversation, but if you were talking to hookers…surely they’d had more awkward conversations.

And with the bees gone and his head cleared, he felt like he could do it. He felt like he could do
anything
.

He searched the apartment for his phone, finding it, finally, shoved between his mattress and the wall. A couple new texts, including one from Ray saying he’d be over soon. He shoved it in his pocket, texts unanswered, and got his shoes on. He needed groceries—pig’s blood, chicken blood, actual food to eat. Maybe cow blood didn’t have whatever it was that shut the bees up. It was worth a try before he had that awkward conversation with a few prostitutes.

It was too bad Jamie was in detox. He could have worked something out with him—drug money for blood. All the addicts win.

He passed his guitar on his way through the living room.
Shit
. They were going to work on songs today. He would have liked to do that. Later. He’d figure his problem out, then go to Ray and tell him it was taken care of, and they could get back to what they do.

He jingled his keys on the way to the car. There were options, damn it. People lived on medication, dialysis, all kinds of medical interventions. That’s all this was. A condition to be managed.

Saturday Ray called. Dan said, “I’m good. I’m fine. Really.” He hadn’t tried the chicken or pig blood, but they were both sitting in his fridge, the meat laid on top of butter knives on plates so the blood would collect below them—you know, because…raw chicken. He’d rather just drink the blood. “How are you?”

“Hoping I don’t turn into a vampire myself is how I am.”

“How do you feel?” Dan asked, worried that what he had might be passed through bites.

“Annoyed,” Ray said.

He pushed a hand into his hair. “I’m sorry.”

“Forget it. What’s done is done. I just want to know why it’s always gotta be me you’re beating on.”

“There’s the CT guy too.”

“Great. We’ll start a club. I wonder how he’s doing.”

Dan hadn’t thought to wonder, but now he crawled with it. Did he dare call the hospital and ask? He didn’t even know which fucking hospital it was, he’d been in such a hurry to get out of there. Carey’d know.

“Any bees?” Ray asked.

“No. You?”

“No.”

“You want to get together?” Dan asked. “Work on that problem with the Dallas bridge?”

“Is it safe?”

“I’m
fine
. If it’s like last time, I probably have close to a week before it gets bad.”

He listened to silence on the other end, picturing Ray leaned back in the armchair he’d rescued from the side of the road, with its brown plaid cushions and nicked wooden arms. In the image, Ray had a hand over his face, the way he did when he was wrestling with something.

“I wish you’d go get checked out,” Ray said finally. “We can both get checked out. I don’t think the bite’s infected, but hey. Better safe right?”

Well that was monumental, Ray offering to go to a doctor. Monumental, but not enough to move Dan into going. He said, “If it gets bad enough I’ll go.”

And got nothing but silence from the other end.

“Have you heard from Jamie?” Dan asked, thinking about that trade: blood for drug money.

“Nope.”

“Maybe he’s doing rehab after all.” How he’d
get
the blood from Jamie—or anyone else—he hadn’t worked out yet.

“That’d be smart.” The tone of Ray’s voice implied Dan wasn’t.

People cut themselves, he thought. On purpose. Maybe he just needed to find a cutter…somehow.

The silence from Ray’s end grew heavy as a lead weight.

“Call me when you want to get together,” Dan said.

“Yeah.”

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Dan said. “Really. I’m working it out.” One way or another.

† † †

Saturday night, a light band of pressure slipped around his head. The pig blood had no effect, and the chicken blood had made him heave. Dan was unsure whether it was that the blood wasn’t “alive” anymore, or that it wasn’t human. Or maybe he just had a
headache
like a normal person. He drew a razor blade across his skin, wincing as he watched the thin red line appear in its wake.

He sat up all night, cross-legged on the bed in the glow of his computer, trying to work out his options—all of them shitty. For a while, around four a.m., the hospital started to look attractive, but when he woke from a few hours of sleep on Sunday morning, he was back to thinking he could manage it himself, somehow.

After he was dressed, he made a cut with a razor blade, had a little taste, and felt fine, except for the lingering headache. Since it didn’t go away, he assumed it was a real headache—and no fucking wonder. He tossed back ibuprofen then grabbed his jacket and keys. He’d just had Ray’s blood the other day. He could do this.