'I Want to Be You'

by

Ferrett Steinmetz

B

illy's chest was so tight he couldn't breathe, the air in his lungs caught halfway between hope and terror. He had been looking for this place for so long, but only now - seconds before he was about to make the biggest decision of his life - did it occur to him that maybe this was a mistake.

His hand hovered over the brass door handle.

Billy's instincts told him that yes, this was the place. He thought about turning back, going home to his bedroom in the basement of his parents' house. He could tell lies in all of the chat rooms and bulletin boards: I went and there was nothing there. Must have been a false lead.

But could he live with himself? Billy tried to imagine himself waking up every morning before he went to his dead-end job at the bookstore, looking at his sunken face in the mirror and thinking, I got that close and walked away. Every morning, he'd know that he'd had an opportunity that others would kill - literally kill - for, and that he had been too afraid to take it.

Before he could change his mind, he flung open the door and walked in.

He stood in a small entry hall, with a coat rack to one side. Velvet black capes hung from it. It was dim in here - and why not? They hated light - but he could just see the entryway before him, flanked by oak panels with elaborate engravings of vines.

No. Not vines.

Arteries. Arteries and veins, lovingly carved into the wood face by the hand of a master craftsman. The veins climbed upwards and around the edges of the doorway, culminating in the gnarled fist of a painstakingly-carved heart at the top of the frame. It hung slightly to the left, like a low-hanging fruit ready to be plucked.

The shock of fear hit him full on; Billy's knees buckled as he realized that they were here. Panicked, he almost ran - but if he ran, they would chase and kill him. His only hope of survival right now was to be bold and meet them as equals.

He walked in.

The bar they sat around was sumptuous, lit by flickering lanterns turned as low as possible - they preferred the dusky light of oil. The light shone dimly off of polished wood, off the fine crystal glasses they held in their long, pale hands, off the padded leather couches they reclined in. There were five of them, and they watched him as he came in.

Billy had read all of the FAQs, but nothing had prepared him for this. They were old, but it didn't show in the traditional ways - their faces were as smooth and pale as baby skin, as unreadable as a caul. They could have been twenty, they could have been a thousand; who could tell?

No, their age showed in the way they dressed - and not one of the fans in all of the chat rooms or bulletin boards had known that. The fear of death had passed for them long ago, but the fear of illness was graven into their bones. They had been born before penicillin, when the slightest germ could explode into a fatal lung disease or deadly blood poisoning… And despite the fact that no flu could have touched them now, they were all clad in layers upon layers of heavy clothing, some long-forgotten instinct telling them to bundle up and stay safe from drafts.

He could feel their eyes crawling over him, taking in his Salvation Army trenchcoat. They looked at the way the edges of his stretched T-shirt hung over his plump stomach, like a curtain rising up to expose a thin slice of stretchmarked, doughy gut. They eyed his piercings with a malicious amusement; none of them would have marred their flesh with metal…

Billy felt as if he might burst into tears.

He had to speak; if he didn't say something then, he would burst into blubbering sobs, completely unmanned.

"I - I came to meet you," he said.

They stared. Two of them were women, so beautiful that they inspired an overwhelming lust mixed with the uncomfortable tang of necrophilia. He would have killed to please them, but there was nothing he could offer them. The three men - their lank hair dark against their milk-white temples - hung around them like satellites.

"They told me - " he swallowed, pressing forward. "They told me you might be here. And I - I admire you. You…." Billy tried to find the words, but every stumbling sentence felt increasingly foolish. Why had he come here?

"I want to be you," he said simply. "I want to be you."

They flicked glances at each other, exchanging viperish smiles. A decision was made. One of them stepped forward, moving across the floor with the ease and quickness of spilled water.

Billy stammered. "I don't know your - "

There was a finger across his lips. It was chill and coated with powder.

"Sssh," said the vampire.

Billy fell silent.

They were lean, like wolves. They could snap his neck and cram him down a drain without the slightest effort. They were amused by him, and the knowledge that he was exactly as harmless as they thought he was galled him.

The one who had shushed him was dressed in a velvet tuxedo with a ruffle at the front, and his hand dipped into his front pocket. With his left hand, he spread Billy's hand open, and with his right he deposited something in Billy's palm so quickly that Billy wasn't even sure he had felt it.

"You'll know what to do," he said. "Now go."

Billy tried to say something, but only fishmouthed.

The vampire leaned in closer. His eyes were shifting from mild amusement to mild irritation - and that change, small as it was, completely unmanned him. Billy fled, abandoning all pretense of composure, his legs pumping wildly as he burst out into the street, running for his life.

He stopped running when he felt the wetness and pain in his hand. Slowly, he uncurled his clenched fist, gasping at the sharp stab as the flesh on his palm shifted around what had been given to him.

A single-bladed razor.



Billy's hand was still bleeding when he placed it on the mouse. He made little nervous circles with the pointer as his bedroom computer booted up, the startup procedure as familiar as the opening credits of Kolchak, The Night Stalker.

After an eternity, he was able to get to his home page: Nightpulse.com --- for trackers of The Immortal. Nightpulse was sleekly decorated in blacks and dim purples, the words little more than shadows against the dark background.

Billy typed up the first sentences of his experience...

...And got an intense flash of what would happen if he posted this.

He had met them. That was power. Right now, Billy could confirm or deny every rumor on this bulletin board.

If he typed this up, he'd be everyone's hero for a few days... But encouraged, someone else would find Them in their hometown. Others would follow. Billy flashed to the worst-case scenario; one by one, his friends were Taken as he rotted in his parents' basement, getting older and pudgier.

"You'll know what to do."

He fingered the razor. There had to be a way to make this last.

An AIM chat window popped up:
Nos4@2: so what happened?

Billy had met Nos4@2 before at a Nightpulse meet-up in Tulsa - his real name was Martin, and he was a smooth egg of a man. Martin had sat timidly at the edges of the get-together - real people made him freeze - but online, he was a compulsive chatterer who was always home, night or day. He was both kind, and kind of annoying.

He was also close: Four hours away.

Billy typed his response.
BillysGotAGun: I need to talk to u
Nos4@2: im here
BillysGotAGun: No, I mean talk
BillysGotAGun: Here
BillysGotAGun: At my house
Nos4@2: did it happen? whats going on?
BillysGotAGun: Come down tonight & Ill tell u.
BillysGotAGun: Don't tell ne1

Moments later, Martin was on his way. Billy took the time to bandage his hand, and then stared at the razor for a very long time.


It was five a.m. when Martin's beat-up Subaru wagon, plastered with "My other car is the Millennium Falcon" bumper stickers, sputtered into the driveway. Martin eased his three hundred-pound bulk out of the car, eyeing Billy with suspicion.

"Are you..."

"No."

"I didn't think so," Martin sighed. "If you were, you wouldn't still be at your parents' house." He leaned back into the car and swept a couple of empty Big Mac cartons onto the floor, retrieving a couple of silver discs. "I burned you those copies of Vampire Hunter D I promised," he said apologetically. "What happened to your hand?"

Billy took the discs, feeling stupid. They went inside.

The bed creaked as Martin sat down. He wore the same trenchcoat as Billy.

"So what happened?" Martin asked.

Billy deflected his query. "Let me ask you a question," he said. "What - what would you do to be one of Them?"

"Is this real?" Martin asked, leaning forward. "Do they..."

"Yes," Billy whispered, shushing him so Martin wouldn't wake his parents. Billy allowed Martin to look deep into his eyes, daring him to find a hint of untruth. Martin's face faded from cynicism to a quiet shock.

"No shit," Martin said, his eyes wide with awe.

"I... I think they made me an offer," Billy said. "But it's dark. Real dark. I had to talk to someone I trust. I mean, what would you do?"

"Anything," Martin said quickly.

Billy frowned.

"I mean," Martin continued, the words pouring out as he stared down at the orange shag carpet, "If it happened, I'd never have to worry about my job again. I could just... Get away from all this, you know? I'd be a part of a group, and they'd all know me, and nobody would fuck with me, and - and I don't think I'd be scared any more. I wouldn't have that gnawing feeling that maybe I was just wasting my life. I'd have all the time I wanted to... Whatever. You know?"

Billy nodded.

"I'd do anything," Martin said, unable to look at Billy. "Please."

Billy's chest went numb. It felt like he was watching himself in a movie; his voice sounded distant and remote to him as he informed Martin that there was something in the bathroom that he needed to see. Martin went in, as trusting as a cow.

When Billy hit him with the baseball bat, the impact traveled all the way up into his shoulders.

Martin turned to face Billy, confused, hoping that Billy might explain this to him. Billy smacked him between the eyes, quick and quiet.

Martin collapsed to the floor.

His hands trembling, Billy scrabbled for the razor. Billy could smell fresh Barbasol on Martin's neck; Martin had been hoping to be Taken, and he hadn't wanted to go through eternity plagued with a five o'clock shadow. Billy could see the pastel blue of Martin's artery resting underneath Martin's freshly-shaved skin.

He slashed down with the razor.

Billy had had several failed love affairs, but there was one that stood out; at one of the meet-ups, a girl had gotten drunk and taken a liking to him. Unfortunately, she'd been having such a great time at the con that she had forgotten to take her medications, and in the middle of a furious make-out session she began to spasm. She clutched him tight as her tongue and lips moved loosely across his face.

As he pressed his mouth to the lips of Martin's wound, Billy closed his eyes and pretended that he was kissing her, the edges of the wound twitching and pulsing as a drunk girl spat blood into his mouth.


The wool scarf stuck to Billy's mouth, sticky fibers tickling his nose. He had been afraid to wipe the blood off of his chin just in case They couldn't sense what he had done - so instead, he wrapped a scarf around his face to hide his crime from any late-night travelers.

But he felt foul. His face was hot; he could feel his cheeks pulling tight as Martin's blood dried and clotted around his lips. His stomach felt like something was boiling in it, and every so often Billy thought I have a stomach full of someone else's blood, and he had to drop to his knees to stop from puking it back up.

He had to keep it down. This was the test.

Billy shoved the door open, and unwound the scarf; it pulled free with a feathery thrrrupt. Despite the fact that it was just before dawn, the five of them were still gathered at the bar.

But there was another. A lithe, nubile youth with thin white hair, dressed in fashionable leather, a decade younger than Billy. The boy stood in rapture, entranced by one of the females; she stroked his chin as he stared dumbly into her eyes, taken long before he was Taken.

The five turned to look at him. Slight creases appeared in the center of their foreheads, the ghost of a frown.

Billy tried to talk, but his tongue was thick. He swallowed, tasting the metallic tang that coated his throat. "I did it," he said, forcing a grin.

The female returned her attention to her young boy's hair, fondling her delightful new pet.

Billy opened his hands in a silent plea. "I'm ready."

The silence that followed was a pit, and Billy could feel himself falling into it. The remaining vampires shifted, vaguely irritated that someone had to acknowledge him.

Finally, the boy spoke the word that shattered all of his illusions:

"You?"

There was a faint susurration of chuckles. They muffled smirks of amusement behind unlined palms. The boy looked at Billy, saw his bloodstained scarf and cheap coat and the stubble on his double chin, and laughed out loud...

"But," Billy protested, fighting back the tears, "I used the razor..."

"Ah," said the one in the tuxedo. "You misunderstood."

A flicker, and he stood next to Billy; he leaned down and pressed cold lips to Billy's ear.

"You are no one," he whispered, as intimate as a kiss. "Your parents see you as soft and a failure. They house you out of guilt. You wake up every morning, and hate everything you are, but you're too weak to change it.

"You have no friends; why should you? You don't even like yourself. The only way you can find an illusion of friendship is over this Internet - and that only lasts because they don't have to look at you. You despise them, too, but they're better than complete loneliness.

"And yet you think that there's something in you that is deserving," the vampire continued, his smile as tight as a cut. "There isn't. We inspire a love that ends in death; you inspire nothing except derision, and you know now that you deserve it.

"In all the worlds," said the vampire tenderly, stroking his cheek, "There is not one person - living or dead - who wants to embrace you. Now go."

They returned to their conversations as Billy stood in the hallway, choking back tears.

Billy crouched on the street, his face and hair still streaked with Martin's blood. The blood of a friend. He rubbed the razor between two fingers.

"You'll know what to do," the vampire said.

Now he understood why they had given him the blade. And it was kind of funny.

Because he knew what to do. He just didn't have the strength to do it.
 
* * * * * (c) Ferrett Steinmetz, All Rights Reserved

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