Charlie Huston - Every Last Drop

Her eyes stop moving.

Her finger marks a spot on the page.

And she looks up.

She's sitting on the floor, like the last time I saw her, but everything else is different. Then shed just got over being about to die. Withered and hollowed out by AIDS and the chemo they'd pumped into her, red hair falling out in fistfuls. A fading ghost.

And look at her now.

All bones and alabaster skin, freckles bleached away, hairless.

Vibrant.

She looks back down at her book.

— Hey, Joe. Come to try and kill me again?

— It was hard. Of course. And I thought I was crazy. I thought they were all my hallucinations. This whole place. Like it was the pain medication. Then I thought, and it was probably all the white clothes they wear, I thought that maybe I was dead. And this was like a test or something. It took a long time.

She flips a couple pages in her book.

— That was why they started paying attention to me. Because I went so long before I tried it.

She shakes her head. -Blood.

She bites her lower lip.

— Its funny to think how long I waited. Cause I was never religious. But I thought, What if the second I try the blood I get sent to hell? It was too weird to be real. But whatever I was thinking, they thought I was special, for fasting so long right after infection. And then I couldn’t hold off anymore. I'd smell it when they all broke fast. And it smelled so damn good. And then I thought, This is bullshit. This isn’t real. I'm on a morphine drip and I'm never waking up and I'm gonna try some of that. I'm not going to hell. And I tried it.

She shakes her head. -And after that, I didn't care if I went to hell.

She looks into the cup in her left hand, the few tablespoonfuls of blood it bears. -Do you think were going to hell, Joe?

I take a drag, think about Queens. -Yeah, seems that way to me.

She sighs. -Yeah. I think maybe we are too.

She looks up.

— He thought about you. Daniel did. -I doubt that. -No, he did, a lot.

She flips a couple pages in the book, reads.

— Simon. Again. An endless distraction, that young man. Adding up the time I've wasted trying to drill some kind of sense into his head. Pointless. No. Its not pointless. Simply tiring. My own shortcomings again. Impatient. Who was it that said it was my greatest weakness? Someone dead now. It could be the reason I

keep trying with Simon is that it gives me an excuse to talk occasionally with someone different than the ones I've been talking to for so long. The Vyrus may be endlessly fascinating in and of itself, but talking about it all the time is boring as hell. Something interesting today. I feel hungry. Odd.

She flips more pages. -That's toward the end of this one. The last one. But there's lots more.

She points at the bracket-mounted shelves that cover two walls of the cubicle, every inch of every shelf lined with journals, notebooks, diaries. -Lots more. I started just pulling them at random. Then I pulled one from toward the end and saw your name. Simon.

She nods at the door.

— A couple of them had used it when they were talking about you. So I knew who he meant. Also, the way he described you. Sullen. Childish. Temperamental. Funny. That all rang a bell. So I found the first one I could with your name.

She points at a red-spine notebook on the shelf. -That one. From the late seventies.

She looks at me. -How old are you?

I scuff the floor. -Closing on fifty.

She nods. -Funny. Id never have picked you for the type to lie about your age.

I glance at the door.

— Look, baby, I want to get all caught up and all, but we should really think about getting out of this place as soon as possible.

She presses the tip of her index finger into the middle of her forehead and closes her eyes. -You know what I hate?

She opens her eyes.

— What I hate is that I feel so stupid sometimes. I think about it. I think about you telling me you couldn't go out in the sun because of solar urticaria. That the blood bags and biohazard coolers were because you were an organ courier. That secret room in your basement.

She closes her eyes again.

— I think how it was so easy to convince you that I wouldn't fuck you because I didn't want to give you HIV. How you never argued with me about it. Never

said it was a risk you would take.

She knuckles her eyes, pressing away a couple stray tears. -Fuck.

She wipes her fingers on her white skirt.

— I think about all that, and think about all I know now, and I think, How could I have been so stupid? How didn't I see that he was a fucking vampire?

She makes a fist and hits the floor.

— And I hate that. Like I should have figured this shit out. Like somehow I should have put all the pieces of your weirdness and our fucked-up relationship together, mixed them up, and spilled them out and they should have come up vampire. Like that isn't utterly insane.

I lower myself to one knee. -Baby.

She jabs a finger at me. -Don't! Don't you call me baby.

I reach, put a finger on the sole of her bare foot. -Baby.

She presses her lips together.

— Damn it! Damn you. You fucker!

I squeeze her foot. -Baby.

She slaps the floor. -You absolute fucking fucker!

I squeeze her foot a little tighter.

— Baby, listen, I know I got a lot to answer for. I know I. I know. But this isn't the time. We need to go now. Because in case you hadn't noticed, you're living in a madhouse.

She's on her feet, standing over me.

— in case i hadn't noticed? I noticed, you son of a bitch, I noticed that you fucking left me in this madhouse!

I look up at her. -I'm back for you now.

She claps her hands together three times, slowly. -Hail the hero, returned to rescue the damsel.

I stare at her foot. Beyond pale. Nails covered in chipped red polish.

— Look. I know. I know this is. Hard. I. I never told you. I thought. You'd think I was crazy. And you'd run. Or. I'd do something to prove it. And you d be more scared. And you'd run. And I'd never see you again. And.

I paw the floor, looking for some kind of traction for my words. -And so I didn't tell you. And. But there's no time now because all hell is going to hit the streets and we need to get gone before it does. We need to.

I look at her, lift my shoulders, drop them.

She puts her hands on her hips. -Does it bother you the Count was the one infected me?

I look around the room, anyplace where she isn't. -Yeah. -Yeah. Me too.

I let myself look at her, see the anger, look away.

— My blood probably would have killed you. It's special, the way it works. Only some can infect some others. I don t know.

— Yeah. I read some stuff like that in Daniels diary. But I didn't say I wish you'd been the one to infect me. I just said I wished it wasn't that prick.

I pull the smokes from my pocket, stare at the package.

— I know. I know this isn't what you wanted. To live like this. To be infected at

all. I know. I tried to protect you from. I. I'm. Shit.

— You.

Half of an ugly laugh escapes her. -You fucking idiot.

Her fist hits the side of my neck and I go down and my skull bounces off the floor. -You think this bothers me?

She picks up the cup of blood. -You actually think this bothers me?

She puts the cup to her lips and drains it.

— I was dying, Joe. I was really dying. It hurt so bad. And I was so scared. And I wanted to live. I prayed. I swore that if I could live I'd do anything. If I could just fucking live. If the pain would go away and I could not be scared and I could live. Anything. I swore I'd do anything.

She squats in front of me, grabs my chin. -And I'm alive.

She forces my face up, my eyes to hers.