Charlie Huston - Already Dead

One day, when I am a braver man, I will tell her these things, and then I will look her in the eye and tell her I love her and ask her to be only mine. But until that day, we're just friends.

In the late morning the phone rings.

– This is Joe Pitt. Leave a message.

– Mr. Pitt, I have a call for you from Mr. Predo. Please pick up if you are in.

Oh, shit. It's the bodybuilder from the Coalition.

– Very well, Mr. Pitt. Please be certain to return this call at the earliest possible moment.

I'm fighting to untangle myself from the sheets, grabbing at the phone. I snatch it off the cradle and drop it on the floor. I fumble with the phone and try to switch off the answering machine at the same time.

– Hello. I'm here. Hello?

The bodybuilder's voice comes over the line and I can hear his exasperation in the way he breathes.

– Good morning, Mr. Pitt, I have a call from Mr. Predo. May I connect you?

– Shouldn't you make sure it's really me, just in case"?

– If I had any doubts, Mr. Pitt, you have just relieved them. I'm connecting you now.

There's a little click and then I hear you know who.

– Good morning, Pitt.

– Morning, Mr. Predo.

– All is well, Pitt?

Here it is.

– Well sure, I guess all is well.

– Then you have disposed of the problem and we can expect no further difficulties'?

There are two things you do not want to do with The Coalition.

The first is fail an assignment. The second is lie to them.

– Yes, Mr. Predo, all cleaned up. No problem.

– Good. In that case, I think I may have some work for you.

Shit.

– Truth is I'm pretty busy right now. Not sure I can take on anything new.

He pauses for a half moment.

– There are two ways to look at this job, Pitt. On the one hand, it is an opportunity, an opportunity you might say yes or no to as you wished. On the other hand, the cleanup we arranged after you bungled things at the school was quite expensive. In light of that, you might look at this job as a favor you owe the Coalition in return for taking care of your mess. I think the latter of these two versions may be the more accurate interpretation. What do you think?

Having just lied to the man I know that this is not the time to let pride have its say.

– I imagine you're right about that.

– That would be yes, then?

– Right.

– I thought that might be your choice.

– Yeah. So what's the job?

– A woman is going to call you today with a problem. You will offer her your assistance. Whatever it is she asks of you, you shall do it. Efficiently and, need I say it, discreetly. Yes?

– Right.

– The woman is of some prominence and breeding. Try to be polite.

– My specialty.

– Yes. Well, once again, my congratulations on taking care of the problem, and my best wishes on the swift resolution of this new endeavor.

– Thanks.

– Good-bye.

– Right.

He hangs up. I sit there on my bed and bang the back of my head against the wall over and over again. Predo thinks the carrier is dead and the fact is I don't have the slightest clue where it is. And if any new zombies start stumbling around before I find the damn thing it won't be hard to figure out where they came from. And after that it won't be long before I'm spiked to the tarmac in some New Jersey parking lot, watching the sun come up.

Joe Pitt isn't my real name. I grew up with a different name, but I changed it when I got infected. Lots of us do. It's not a rule or anything, not like you need to pick your secret-sacred Vampyre name. It's just that most of us leave our old lives behind, and the first thing to go is the name. Anyway, I grew up with a different name.

There are some great parents out there; parents who know a thing or two about loving and nurturing. I had the other kind of parent.

I was born in the Bronx in 1960. By 75 I was on my own, living with a bunch of other punk squatters in the East Village. It was alright. I panhandled and robbed, wore a Mohawk; drank, shot, snorted and sucked anything I could get. I got a rep for being twice as sick as any other punk on the scene. I'd fuck or fight anything that stood still.

In '77 I go to see the Ramones at CBGB. Great show. I get drunk, get stoned, eat speed, and in the bathroom some guy in a suit offers me twenty bucks to let him suck my dick. It was a different time. Suits would come down to slum and check out the scene, and some of them were trolls looking for rough trade. And I liked having my dick sucked; the money was icing.

He gets my tight plaid pants unzipped and goes down on his knees with a handkerchief on the floor to protect his slacks. Through the walls I can hear Joey and the band swing into "Now I Wanna Be a Good Boy" and I come in the guy's mouth. He stands up, pulls out another twenty and offers it to me if I suck him. I say no, but that I'll give him a hand job. He gives me the twenty. My hand is in his pants and he's leaning against me, his face tucked against my neck. I'm jerking him in time to the music pounding through the walls, thinking about the booze and drugs I'm gonna buy with the forty bucks. I'm so fucked up it takes me a few seconds to realize he isn't just trying to give me a hickey. By the time I try to scream he's chewed a hole in my neck.

He was sloppy. He left me folded up on the floor, didn't try to get rid of me or disguise the wound or even drain me and save some of the blood. A fucking slummer out for a cheap thrill. I lay there on the floor while people came in and out of the can, stepping over me to get to the pot. Some guy passed out on the bathroom floor was no big deal at CBGB, not even one that was bleeding. I don't know how long I was there before Terry Bird came in and saw me. He picked me up and carried me out through the crowd. I think he was just planning to dump me, but then he saw how much life I had left and took me home instead.

Terry got me healthy, explained what had happened. I didn't believe him. Big scene, lots of freaking out involved. Then he fed me blood for the first time, and I didn't care about anything else.

I was with Terry for three years. He told me about the Clans, how they run different chunks of territory in Manhattan and make sure things stay quiet, how they keep the Vampyre a secret. He told me about the Coalition.

The Coalition used to run the whole island, except for the West Village; the West Village has always been Enclave. But things changed for the Coalition in the sixties. That's when the Hood seized everything above 110th and Terry formed the Society and took the East Side turf from 14th down to Houston. That left the island's bottom cut off from the rest of the Coalition. Now all that turf down there is run by minor Clans and Rogues. As for the Outer Boroughs: Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx? From what I hear, it might as well be a jungle once you cross a river. Who knows what the savages are doing out there in the bush? And who cares? But the real turf still belongs to the Coalition. They took some lumps in the sixties, got whittled down a bit, but they still control everything river to river between 14th and 110th.

They have the big turf because they have numbers. They find a role in their Clan for any Vampyre who wants to join, and keep all their members supplied with a ration of blood equal to their contribution to the Clan. And that's their real power, all that blood they get their hands on. Somehow. They'll keep you supplied so you don't go Rogue and feed on your own and cause any trouble, but only as long as you toe their line. And their line is invisibility. They cultivate influence in the uninfected world, but only to protect the Clan and its interests. Or, as Terry would say, the interests of the Secretariat.