You Suck: A Love Story

felt a deep-seated need for potatoes.
    She was musing on the idea of heading up to McDonald’s onMarket Street and spooging a syringe full of William’s blood all over a supersized box of deep-fried nirvana when the phone rang. The caller ID number was blocked, it just said mobile. It might be Tommy. He’d activated the disposable mobile phones they’d bought, but he probably hadn’t written down the numbers.
    “Hey, pumpkin,” Jody said.
    She heard a clattering at the other end of the line. “Sorry, I dropped the phone.”
    Oops. Not Tommy. “Who is this?”
    “Uh, it’s, uh, it’s Steve. I’m the med student who called you about your condition.”
    He’d found her when she’d gone to a Blood Drinkers Anonymous meeting in Japan Town, which turned out to be a bunch of nerds with problems distinguishing fantasy from reality. Had watched her from a distance and called her on a pay phone from blocks away, ready to jump in his car and bolt if she came near him. He knew what she was.
    He’d said that he had examined one of the bodies left by the old vampire. Elijah had snapped their necks so the bodies would be found, instead of turning to dust.
    “What do you want?”
    “Well, like I said, I’m a med student atBerkeley. Actually, I’m in research. Gene therapy.”
    “Yeah, next lie, please.” Jody’s mind was going ninety miles and hour. Too many people knew about her. Maybe she and Tommy should have left town.
    “What lie?” Steve asked.
    “Berkeleydoesn’t have a med school,” Jody said. “So what do you want?”
    “I don’t want anything. I’ve been trying to tell you, I’ve studied the blood of the victims. I think I may be able to reverse your condition. Turn you back. I just need some time in the lab with your blood.”
    “Bullshit, Steve. This isn’t biology.”
    “Yes it is. I told your boyfriend the night you turned him.”
    “How did you know…?”
    “I was on the phone with him when you told him you were going to be together for a very long time.”
    “Well, that was rude, just listening like that.”
    “Sorry. I’ve managed to get cloned cells from the throats of victims to revert to their natural human state.”
    “Which is dead,” Jody said.
    “No, living cells. I just need to meet with you.”
    He’d pressed this before, and Jody had been willing to meet with him, but unfortunately, while she was sleeping, Tommy had put her in the freezer for a few days and she’d missed the appointment. “No meeting, Steve. Forget you know anything about this. You’ll have to write your dissertation on something else.”
    “Well, take my number if you change your mind, okay?”
    He gave her the number and Jody wrote it down.
    “It’s a burner cell phone,” Steve said, “So you can’t find me through it.”
    “I don’t want to find you, Steve.”
    “I promise I won’t reveal your-your condition to anyone, so you don’t need to find me.”
    “Don’t worry,” Jody said. “I don’t want to find you.” Get over yourself, she wanted to add.
    “What about the other one you warned me about?”
    Jody looked at the bronze statue that held Elijah Ben Sapir. “He won’t bother you either.”
    “Oh, good.”
    “Steve?”
    “Yeah?”
    “If you tell anyone, I’ll find you, and I’ll slowly snap every bone in your body before I kill you.” Jody tried to make it sound cheerful, but the threat sort of cut through the bright, friendly lilt in her voice.
    “Okay then. Bye.”
    “Yeah,” Jody said. “You take care.”
    T he shedding?” Tommy said as he came through the door. Jody stood at the counter in her new red leather jacket, boots, and mist-tight black jeans.
    Jody could hear Abby locking the downstairs door, so they had a few seconds alone.
    “Look, did you want me to tell her you were just a big orange doofus?”
    “I guess not. Hey-”
    “She calls you Flood?”
    “I couldn’t tell her ‘Tommy.’ I’m her dark lord. Your dark lord can’t be named Tommy. ‘Flood’ has an air of power.”
    “And dampness.”
    “Yeah, it’s got the dampness thing going for it, too.”
    Abby came in, breathing hard. She’d been sweating and her eyeliner was running in two black streaks down her cheeks. “We didn’t find him. I could have sworn he was dead. He smelled like it.”
    “You got something against dead people?” Jody said-tough-guy voice. “Are you saying there’s something wrong with dead people? Is that what you’re saying? Are you saying