Detritus

[zephonate]

Greetings, all.

I'm an aspiring writer. Let the Right One In (both the movie and novel) have inspired my writing in many ways. Not long after what must've been my 25th viewing of the film, I decided to sit down and start writing a vampire story of my very own. Though this technically isn't LTROI fan fiction, the story itself is heavily influenced by our beloved tale, so I figured this section would be as good as any to show some of it to you fine people in order to collect some thoughts, opinions, or maybe even some (hopefully constructive) criticism.

I'm going to post in increments, depending on how many responses I get. I now present you all with the beginnings of Detritus.

For anyone who would like to listen to some accompanying music (the piece I actually wrote this prologue to) while they read:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUIhmy-HvcA

Prologue: A Lonely Place to Die

"Sorry gots to do dis to ya, Roldy. But you know well as I do dis a dog eat dog world. You a casualty of da streets! And you always been the noble one. Hell, you been a bigger pain in Maurice's ass than I been. You shoulda seen dis comin' sooner or later.
"Listen I'd love to take ya to some doctors n' shit, but dat ain't gonna do nothin but get people askin' questions. Stickin' their noses where they don't belong. So, looks like dis where we go our separate ways, big brotha."
With those crass parting words, Russell Meeks turned and walked off, his burgundy coat fluttering behind him in the frigid breeze. He adjusted his beige fedora, clicked his teeth and grinned happily as he made his exit, already miles beyond the thoughts occupying his mind moments before. It took him but a minute to never be seen by present company again.
"Good riddance," Roldy spat as he watched his brother vanish from his life, a fresh wave of searing agony traveling from his abdomen up his spine, spreading like fingers throughout the rest of his body. He could handle the pain--physical torment meant nothing, emotional even less so, no thanks to the lack of love and respect from his sibling for most of their lives.
Russ was right 'bout one thing. Considerin' how much Maurice's been gunnin' for us lately, I definitely shoulda' seen this comin'.
Hours passed. Despite his shallow breath, cold sweat and blurred vision, the gunshots rang through Harold's mind fresh as the moment they roared into existence. Two impossibly bright explosions repelling the darkness for the briefest span of time, leaving no proof they happened at all but the echoes and blood.
Following such a brilliant display, Roldy assumed the part of a human rag doll, tossed aside with the rest of the filth in a grimy alleyway. Though he couldn't feel much, the coarse brick wall pressing into his back bothered him more than the dime-sized holes torn through his stomach. The degradation of his senses coupled with the abundance of red paint were evidence enough of his dwindling lifeline.
I'm gonna die. I'm gonna bleed out. And for what? Russ didn't even thank me. I been savin' his ass ever since we was kids, and how does he repay me? By throwin' me out with the rest of the trash.
"Some brother he turned out to be," he whispered to himself, nonplussed by how much his voice already sounded like a death rattle. It wouldn't be long before life would close the book on the less than stellar legacy of Harold Meeks.
Harold never strived to fit in with the gang presence in his neighborhood. His wish was to become a fire fighter and dedicate his life to helping people. But more often than not, reality kills ambition. The closest he ever came to his goal was safeguarding his troublemaking brother, partly to fulfill the dying wish of their mother, partly out of a sense of duty. Watching the kid's back was never easy thanks to Russell's attraction to street culture and his propensity to make enemies. In the end Roldy knew protecting his kin was a thankless job, evidenced by the bullets he took for his younger that evening without so much a tear shed or kiss goodbye.
The lights of Manhattan were nowhere to be seen from the dark little alcove in Harlem soon to be his grave. 2:30 AM, waist-deep in refuse, mere minutes away from dying cold and alone. He couldn't help but repeat the phrase "I don't deserve this" over and over in his head, yet he knew no amount of complaining would undo his--perhaps misguided--selfless act. No amount of whining would save him from the brink, nor cause a wandering stranger to go out of their way to help him. He knew he was beyond help anyway. Such was the cruelty of living in a world deadened by the accumulation of assassinated hopes and dreams. Everyone was far too willing to turn a blind eye to the plights of their fellow men.
Small footsteps made themselves known at the mouth of the alley. The faint orange glow from a nearby streetlamp was enough to illuminate a short silhouette coming closer. It placed a mitten-covered hand around the bricks at the entrance parallel to its shoulder.
The figure couldn't have been more than five-foot-one. In spite of the mysterious shape's diminutive stature, Harold's first instinct was to be afraid, though he couldn't muster the energy to protest or back away.
The pint-sized shadow stood for a long time watching breathlessly, unmoving. It appeared curious, almost like a newborn kitten. It seemed reticent to come forward, perhaps just as frightened as the man it laid eyes upon.
After what felt like minutes it crept on, at last assuming a crouch a mere foot away.
"You're hurt," came a soft voice from beneath its hooded sweatshirt. The voice was that of a boy no older than fourteen. Following the observation he inched closer, reaching out a timid hand.
"Shouldn't be out dis late, kid. Bad neighborhood," Harold groaned, no longer feeling threatened, an odd sense of calm emanating from the boy.
"Don't you mean this early?" the boy replied jokingly, part of his face now protruding from the shadow cast by his hood. He had pale white skin with round cheeks and a button nose, longish curls of mahogany hair visible even in the low light. He smirked, gently touching his outstretched mitten to Harold's chest.
"By the looks of how much blood there is, I'm guessing you've been here a while. Couple hours at least," the boy muttered, a hint of sadness in his tone. He opened his mouth, placed the fingertips of one of his gloves in his teeth and pulled, yanking it off.
"How...you...know that?" Harold groaned, wavering.
After dropping the glove in his own lap, "My dad was a doctor. Taught me some things. People don't die right away from a shot to the stomach. Supposed to hurt real bad," he spoke as he took a seat, keeping his gloved hand atop the man's heart, paying no mind to the puddle of cold blood and garbage water seeping into his jeans from the ground.
"You shouldn't be here, kid. You don't...gotta see this," he coughed, a line of red dribbling from his lips down his chin.
"It's nothing I haven't seen before. Besides, you don't have much time left, and I don't think you'd rather be alone."
He didn't have the strength to be perplexed, nor the desire to disagree. The only thing he was still capable of feeling was a sense of gratitude followed by the boy's free hand as it grasped Harold's long dark fingers.
The last thought to pass through Harold's mind was a question--an inquiry as to why the boy's hand felt colder than the night air or his own lifeless body.
A few seconds passed, during which his remaining moments drained. Once respect had been paid in silence to the deceased, the boy sat up on his knees and leaned to the body's ear to whisper a posthumous message.
"You were a good man, Harold," the boy spoke before delicately sinking his teeth into the tender flesh of the neck, drinking from it copious amounts of crimson. All the while, Harold's thick black fingers never left the child's hand.

[PeteMork]

I do like your writing style. It's sort of like the old 1940s to 1950s detective stories, like Richard Diamond, or anything by Mickey Spillane, but with a bit of dark humor thrown in. Let's see the next installment!

[zephonate]

I do like your writing style. It's sort of like the old 1940s to 1950s detective stories, like Richard Diamond, or anything by Mickey Spillane, but with a bit of dark humor thrown in. Let's see the next installment!

Thanks, Pete! Glad to see someone's taken the time to read this. =)

Music for this section:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGtN3lpI2f4

And without further ado...

From the Journals of Donald Backman:

September 29th, 1988.
No matter how much evidence points to the myths of old, I'm still reluctant to use the V-word, even if Leo fits much of the criteria. If what he has is any sort of ailment--virus, disease, or otherwise--I'm quickly becoming convinced there is no cure. His affliction is all-encompassing. It has become him. Thus separating the boy from his needs is no longer possible.
Still...I'm trying as hard as I can not to give up hope.
Originally I thought my son's condition was psychological. What else was I to conclude? I received a call at work telling me Leo had been sent home from middle school for biting a student. Not the sort of playful nibble you might expect on an elementary school playground, but a chomp to the neck. The boy needed to be hospitalized for Christ's sake. He was fine--mostly a surface wound--though that assurance did little to sway the gravity of the situation.
The custodian managed to pull Leo off just after the bite occurred, though not without consequence. The man suffered three broken ribs from my son elbowing him to get free, yet the man maintains he must have broken them earlier in the day and not realized it--that there was no way Leo could have done so. In retrospect, I can't decide if I consider his denial to be pride or fear-based.
The most perplexing part of the assault came in the form of Leo immediately dropping to the ground and lapping up the spilled blood from the bite. The faculty and fellow students were too frightened by his actions to make an attempt at detaining him. Not that I'm surprised...I can't say I would have reacted much differently.
He was suspended for a week. We of course received threats of legal action from the bitten boy's parents. We scheduled an appointment with a child psychologist the next day before meeting with our lawyer, during which the only concerning behavior Leo displayed was an aversion to being in the sun. The doctor humored him, drawing the blinds in his office and closing the shutters. Afterwards he was the sweetest boy in the whole world. The one I raised. The one my wife and I loved with all our hearts. Though the notes the psychologist shared with us later on were more than a little disturbing.
"I don't know why I did it. It was like I couldn't control myself. I was getting really tired during lunch, started breathing really heavy. Then Kodi walked by. He said 'hey', and I tried to say it back.
"Something was different about him. I could hear really big pounding sounds like a heartbeat. Next thing I knew I started walking closer. I couldn't help it! I couldn't control myself! I didn't mean to do it, I didn't want to. It just...happened."
The doctor asked him (as well as us later on) if we allowed him to watch vampire movies. We all said no, though I couldn't guarantee he didn't sneak them late at night. In any case I knew he was smarter than that. Not impressionable enough to see a monster movie and attempt to replicate its depictions in real life.
"I don't know why I licked up the blood. I was telling myself the whole time, 'This is so gross, what're you doing!?' I couldn't stop myself. Something about it looked so...good. After I drank some, I stopped feeling so out of breath."
The notes did nothing more than raise questions. Why the sudden fear of sunlight? Why the incident at school when we never witnessed any violent or erratic behavior from him before?
As time went on, his unwillingness to go outside during the day only intensified. Finally I was done playing games. I came into his room three days after the therapy session to find he duct taped his blankets over his windows in the night. I ignored it, demanded he get some fresh air.
I dragged him kicking and screaming to the front door. I stopped just short of reaching the placemat. He was inconsolable, sobbing. I asked him what was wrong and he couldn't tell me. Only that he was afraid.
I didn't understand it. Not until I saw his belly. An inch or so of skin protruding from his pajama shirt, engulfed in a ray of light from the living room. It looked as if sulfuric acid had been poured atop it. The flesh was dissolving, giving way to plumes of blood oozing up from the burning layers. Mortified, I snatched him up into my arms and carried him back to his room. Thinking of nothing else to do, perhaps losing my mind a bit, I opened a cut on my palm with my scalpel and fed him the blood.
An hour later the wounds were gone. Soon after, Miranda started spiraling, unable to cope with what had become of our boy.
It's been three weeks since I nearly threw him into a veritable furnace, a hell of sunfire. Only a week after the first sign of symptoms and his condition had reached its peak. Full saturation.
I'm a man of science through and through. But I love my boy. No amount of professional curiosity or yearning for knowledge could change that. So I'm standing by my decision not to go public. Not to tell anyone. Leo's having enough trouble dealing with things as is. I refuse to put him through more pain and hardship. I could never live with myself if he became a lab rat, dissected and studied just to see what would happen next.
I've removed him from school, deciding to tutor him at home. His friends all stopped taking his calls following the biting incident anyway, perhaps fortunately. The fewer people inquiring about him the better. The safer.
Though I won't let anyone outside of the family know of my findings, it is imperative I do what I can to learn of his condition. That's not the ambition of a doctor talking but of a father so worried sick out of his head he can't stand it.
I have to run more tests. I need to do more research, try to see if I can find any medical precedence for what is happening, for his sake as much as my own. If he is to live with this for the rest of his life (God knows how long that will turn out being if what the evidence points to is true), then I will give it my all to help him live with it.

[DMt.]

Go, Zepho!

I see that you can command more than one style...

[zephonate]

Accompanying music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gT6AnrDwew

#
You're really stupid, you know that? You didn't have to wait. Look at all that on the ground! All gone to waste. That could've kept you going for another six weeks.
You just had to keep him company, didn't you? When're you gonna man up and learn that getting your hands dirty once in a while comes with the territory of being what you are?
Leo knew waiting until a person was dead was usually detrimental to his health, yet he could never muster the fortitude to end a life on his own. He sighed, pitying himself, joylessly seizing the three-minute window to drink what little blood was left before it would spoil.
When no more could be sucked from the twin punctures, he rolled into a sitting position beside Harold's body, his legs and arms outstretched, finally able to take a full and unlabored breath into his lungs again. He could feel the exquisite spreading of air across his body with each inhalation as cells carried oxygen throughout it, easing his pain, allowing exhaustion to fully take hold of him. It was a blessing--a change of pace to feel tired. Sweet relieving fatigue, untainted by a constant suffocation like thick vines wrapped around his heart constricting his entire being.
It was moments like these that he felt something reminiscent of being human again. Tiredness, aching muscles, heaviness. Having just drank, he was only a full day's rest from the familiar strength, speed, and heightened senses returning, and with them the lack of humanity once more.
Though he relished the times where he felt something akin to normalcy, it was also these instances that allowed the darker thoughts to seep in.
You could go to sleep right now. Close your eyes. In a couple hours it'll all be over. You'll be in such a deep dream you won't even feel it.
It wasn't the first time his mind attempted to rationalize suicide by sun. Three times before, it had been considered, though in different places and situations. Each time Leo was barely able to talk himself out of it. And each time the proposition returned to him, the idea gained new alluring qualities.
He had no friends. No family. Nothing save for a few trinkets to call his own, nothing to latch onto. Physically fourteen, left to roam the world alone, essentially frozen in stasis for as long as time and circumstance would see fit. The youngest nomad to walk the earth.
His existence was a tiresome, difficult, and always lonely one. At night he passed time by people watching--observing the lives of others as he desperately fantasized about being a part of them. This hobby's benefits were twofold. It afforded him one of the only glimmers of happiness he seemed allotted in his so-called life, and it gave him a means of tracking prey.
Watching others, seeing their faults, their quarrels and their dark deeds come to fruition usually resulted in deaths which Leo found preferable to take advantage of than killing someone himself. Sometimes these losses of life occurred through gang fights, other times through drive-by shootings, and often via drug overdoses. The latter was not a scenario he enjoyed partaking in due to a victim's blood being muddied in said cases. Necessity trumped preference though (aside from when it came to murder). At least his body recovered from drug effects quickly.
New York City's underbelly was populated by lost souls akin to his own. No matter how much he would've been willing to give to find kinship with one of them, he was forced to do what was necessary to survive. He couldn't get involved, couldn't reach out, otherwise said kinship would be short lived indeed. On the bright side, at least the people who died of causes inherent to the area were rarely missed. And using his dad's old scalpel to connect the two bite marks after drinking was enough to disguise his work as a mere knife wound. When the police were given victims with shots to the stomach, stabbings to the heart or pummeled faces, they rarely questioned a small slash at the carotid artery. Even when they did, the dreaded V-word was never once brought into the limelight.
Okay, maybe don't go to sleep. You could find a place above ground, a spot with a window if you're careful. Then you could look over that middle school you like so much when daylight hits. Be nice to see it with some actual people around.
Not an option, despite how he would've relished the opportunity. Far too risky, far too conspicuous. He had two sun scars from attempting similar feats of bravery in the past. Experience taught him in the end that one can never have too much protection from the blazing ball in the sky. Simply being outside during the day was tantamount to taking a gamble with his life. This ensured spotting another preteen out and about to possibly make friends with would be a nigh impossibility thanks to what many would call his "odd hours".
Who're you kidding? Looking like them doesn't make you one of them. Let's not start forgetting years shall we? You might walk like a kid, talk like a kid, even think like a kid sometimes. But when it comes right down to it, you couldn't be anything less.
He sniffled, curling into an even tighter ball, tucking his fists beneath his chin, cocooned in dirty blankets dragged from the surface down to the pitch black train tunnel. It was out of the way, dangerous for most, and completely abandoned. Derelict. Appropriate.
It wasn't easy spending most of life watching, waiting for others to die, harvesting their leftover vitality once they were gone, incapable of doing normal people things like watching a sunrise, going out to play or building bonds with others. Leo asked God once in a while what he did to deserve such a state of affairs, why he was destined to be alone and have no one for all time.
If God existed, His only reply was silence. Perhaps that was the truest best answer. Perhaps God decided long ago to turn away from Leo Backman.

[WhiteBackground]

This is very good! More, please

[zephonate]

October 20th, 1988.
Miranda's proving to be a bigger hinderance than I originally anticipated. I believed her preference of isolation and her demeanor of numbness would at least provide for an uninterrupted work environment, free of the distractions being in a marriage entails. Her unwillingness to assist or let me in is slowing down my progress, diminishing my focus.
It's stressful enough finding ways for my son and I to cope with his sickness without having to deal with her on top of it. I can't resolve her issues, nor can they resolve themselves. She can't even be reasoned into being part of her own family anymore. I don't even know how she feels about our child...does she resent him for complicating her life so? Does she think he's some sort of monster for what he needs to do in order to survive? All I know is she won't tell me anything, Leo misses his mommy, and I can't give him what he wants, only what he needs.
I see now that her exterior is exactly that. A shell. A mask. She isn't catatonic, in fact very aware of her surroundings and what is going on. I can feel that presence, those eyes watching. Something is brewing in her head and I can feel it on me all the time like fire ants crawling across my skin, taking a moment every once in a while to bite down.
Maybe I can bring some of my findings to her, insignificant as they may be. Perhaps then she'll come to her senses and realize we did not birth a demon. We did not raise a devil. He is a boy like any other, special needs or not.
He is her son. Our son. I know my love for him is unconditional enough to help him fight this. Here's hoping the same still goes for her.

Chapter Two: Blood Feud

Six nights after feeding from Mr. Meeks, Leo was on the prowl again. The minuscule amount of blood he was able to salvage from the bullet-riddled man had only been enough to sustain him a few moons longer. The familiar shortness of breath coupled with the slowing of his reflexes began to make themselves known once more. His superior power and speed were gradually becoming less so. He needed to use what reserves of strength he had left to secure more blood.
Leo had spent the better part of a month watching Harold, silently waiting until Death (in the guise of a pissed-off gangster) removed him from life's equation. Harold was also the last person on his people watching list. Earlier that year it contained around twelve men and women, each at varying stages in their lives, all with compatible blood types to his own, all certain to die from one cause or another with enough frequency between them to keep the boy meagerly fed. He was at the end of his list though, and he was having trouble finding the motivation to add to it.
His emotional well-being fluctuated from month to month. Sometimes he was able to find a particularly striking young woman or an interesting enough man to hold his attention, to keep his imagination occupied with fantasies of conversation and connection, allowing him to maintain a fairly hopeful outlook on his situation. He attributed this to the quadrant of his brain that refused to age. His mind was certainly capable of gaining new knowledge and maturing in subtle ways, though his father's research taught him that a sizable portion of his mentality would always remain fourteen. Always dreaming, always daring, always hoping. He had yet to decide if this was a blessing or a curse.
Then there were the dark times. The nights when he would be forced to play parasite to the cadaver of a person he grew to know from afar, grieving their loss and his own actions as if he were the monster that set the pieces into place. It was during these nights he was at his most vulnerable, that he felt the full bear of his steadily increasing years. On these occasions it took every ounce of his enhanced strength not to exit his subway tunnel and stroll into the welcoming sunlight.
The mere idea that a being such as himself could be considered dead by anyone--myth or otherwise--infuriated him. No dead thing could feel pain such as his. No dead thing could feel guilt and persecution of such magnitude. No dead thing had a heart that still beat strongly within its chest, no matter how much each beat felt like it would cave in the four-chambered muscle, the emptiness suffocating him on all sides.
The vacuousness of immortality unshared. The loneliness and torture of being an ant under God's magnifying glass.
Save your existential crisis for later. You need to feed. You can spend as much time as you'd like on the woe-is-mes once you've gotten enough blood to keep your lungs from feeling like they're filled with daggers.
He crouched at the edge of a brownstone overlooking the loading zone behind a pharmacy. A small burst of adrenaline surged in him as his nostrils flared, picking up an all too familiar coppery aroma in the air. He hooked his gaze downward and found a heavyset man hobbling under the nearest streetlight. He was sweating profusely and panting like a dog, badly limping, trying desperately to carry what appeared to be a laundry bag slung over one shoulder.
He's bleeding...but the blood's not hitting the air, not dying. Must be internal. From his looks and the smell of carbon monoxide, he must've been hit by a car.
Leo watched closely as events unfolded, lightly scratching the ledge with his bare fingertips. The man came to a halt, tossing his gunny sack in front of him. He placed a hand on each knee and bent forward coughing, attempting to regain his breath. That's when Leo detected the moist wheeze in the man's hacking.
Three...two...one.
The overweight man dropped like a ton of bricks atop the asphalt, overturning his sack in the process. What spilled out was papery, light green in shade, turning almost white under the bulb of the lamppost. A faint police siren was heard in the distance for all of four seconds before vanishing from relevance.
The guy was out cold. From the pattern of his breathing to the sound of fragmented bones rubbing together in his head and chest, Leo surmised it was permanent. Hemorrhagic shock would kill him long before he would ever be given the chance to wake up again. Were the boy intensely interested in living to see another night, he would've considered himself lucky.
No time like the present I suppose.
He leapt from his perch and landed in a crouch smoothly beside the body. He relaxed his muscles, curled back his lips and exposed his fangs.
Just as he knelt to bite, a tremendous force planted itself against his right temple, throwing him several feet away. He impacted hard with the a brick wall, fell to the ground, and unfurled at the edge of the lamppost's glow.
It was an attack that certainly would've killed a normal human, crushing the skull like fragile peanut brittle slapped against concrete. It took a moment for him to recover, his vision taking its time coming back into focus while the deafening ring in his ear subsided. He suddenly found himself wondering if his initial theory on the portly man being struck by a car was even remotely accurate.
The energy his body consumed in an effort to cushion the blow to his head resulted in his breath shortening, his lungs spasming from a deficiency of air. The direness of his predicament reasserted itself, bringing his attention to whatever attacked him and was standing in the way of the blood he now gravely needed. He was more than slightly taken aback by what stood across from him in the loading zone, poised to strike again in the blink of an eye.
It was a girl. A dark-haired girl who by all appearances was not much younger than he.

[DMt.]

Are you writing straight into the thread, Z? Or bringing it ready-cooked?

Just curious...

[zephonate]

Are you writing straight into the thread, Z? Or bringing it ready-cooked?

Just curious...

I've got it ready-cooked until about page 65 of my manuscript. I've been working on it pretty consistently though, so I don't think I'll run out of material to post any time soon. xP

Aside from wanting to read more (if you guys do), any thoughts, opinions, or questions thus far?

[DMt.]

When's the next bit?