This is another one that fits into the vague and undefined group of stories where Alan is a vampire and has turned Sam. You don't need to have read the others though.
Oh, and I don't own the Lost Boys, obviously ;-)
Breaking Point
Consciousness creeps up on him slowly, lapping at first at the very edges of his awareness like the gentle waves of the outgoing tide. He ignores it, shoving it aside and allowing himself to drift back down into the comfort of slumber.
The bed is soft, softer than it should be, with his old and lumpy mattress. He turns over, and the springs surprise him by not creaking. He is laying on top of the covers, which is unusual but not too strange. After a long night's hunting he is sometimes too tired to get into bed, but as he turns the bare skin of his arm is caressed by a silky duvet cover instead of his usual blanket and sheet.
Somewhere, deep down in his awareness, he begins to realize that something isn't quite right. Still, he ignores it, listening instead to the subtle but convincing call of slumber as it pulls him down once again. He has never felt so relaxed, or so calm.
Literally never. Which seems odd, considering.
Curious now, but not yet concerned, he reluctantly allows his eyes to slide open and take in his surroundings. He is in a bedroom. Not the area of his trailer where his bed is built into the wall, but a genuine room of a house. It's a big one too, judging by the size of this one room. The walls are plain, painted a shade of not quite white. The floor is equally bare, an expanse of beige carpeting. The bed is huge, king-size at least, and so soft that he feels as though he could sink right through it and out the other side.
The curtains are drawn closed, and no light leaks through from the outside. Nighttime, then. All the light in the room comes from a dim bulb hanging on a short wire from the middle of the ceiling.
He has no idea where he is.
The growing feeling that something is wrong begins to gnaw away at the calmness. The fact that it has not already completely dissipated tells him that something strange is happening, there is something artificial about the way he is feeling. It fades further at that thought, retreating like an intruder that has been discovered. He is not at full freak out yet, but somewhere fast approaching concern.
He casts his mind back to his last memory, but draws a blank. Had he been at home? Out hunting? Recent events fill his mind, but with no certainty as to what order they happened. He remembers being at home, planning to hunt. Was that the last thing, or had that been another night completely? He doesn't know. His mind steadfastly refuses to provide the answers he is searching for.
He sits up. His clothes slide easily over the duvet with a whispering sound and notes that he is still wearing his usual gear. His boots have been removed and placed on the floor next to the bed, revealing mismatched socks. His left heal is exposed though a large hole. He reaches up to his head and finds that his bandanna is missing. If he had been wearing it at all.
"So, you're up."
Edgar flinches in surprise, jumping to his feet and spinning around, reaching for a weapon that he doesn't have. He finds himself staring into the face of Sam Emerson.
"Took you long enough," Sam says. "Long time, no see. I'd ask how it's going but, well..."
His former best friend is seated on the floor, leaning against the wall at the other side of the room. Edgar finds himself staring at him, confused. Sam gets to his feet and walks to Edgar's side of the room. He moves differently now to when he had been human. It is a subtle difference, but one that Edgar has become acutely attuned to.
Edgar watches, warily, careful to make no sudden moves. This is not really Sam, this is some twisted parody of him, and being around him is dangerous. Out of the corner of his eye, he assesses the room for escape routes.
"What's going on?" he finally asks.
"It's okay," Sam tells him. He folds his arms, the palms of his hands rub nervously against the dark cotton of his shirt while he teases his bottom lip with teeth that look deceptively human. "It'll come back to you. Things tend to be a bit foggy at first, but you'll get there." He frowns. "Unfortunately. Keep hold of that blissful amnesia for as long as you can, buddy. You're going to miss it later."
Edgar shakes his head. There is a flash of something in his memory. Outside, near the beach, nighttime. A hand on his shoulder.
Sam's frown deepens as he watches.
A hand. He turns around, reaching for his stake and finds himself staring right into the face of...
"Oh fuck, no," his throat tightens, the words come out as little more than a whisper.
At once, Sam is by his side, a hand on his shoulder. The room tilts sharply to the left, Edgar struggles not to fall.
"Hey, it's going to be okay." Sam tells him. He holds him upright, and since when was Sam so strong? Oh, right. Vampire. Edgar feels as though he can still taste the poison in his mouth. Straight from the vein. Had he even struggled? He doesn't remember.
Sam leads him back to the bed where Edgar allows his shaking legs to give up and deposit him on the edge of the mattress.
"Damn it. He said he was going to keep you calm for this bit."
Edgar takes a deep breath, but he is anything but calm now. He searches for the unfamiliar, artificial emotion, desperately reaching for it as he drowns in a rising wave of panic.
"It's not as bad as you think, once you get used to it." Sam tells him. The bed dips suddenly as the vampire – the other vampire – sits down next to him. "And you might as well get used to it, it's done. There's only so many ways it can go from here and, well, he's holding all the cards, so..."
Edgar shakes his head. "This can't be happening."
"You sure about that, bud?"
Sam had been right. Those few moments of confusion had been heaven compared to this.
How could he do this to him? His own brother. Only, he wasn't, was he? Not anymore. This finally settled the doubt that he had been harboring for all these years, half convinced that there might be a shred of humanity behind the fangs.
Sam looks up sharply, then turns to Edgar. "I've gotta go," he says. "He's looking for me."
He moves quickly, unlocking the door, passing through and turning the key on the other side. Edgar doesn't move; the knowledge of what has been done to him pushes him down like a great weight and he can barely even think of escape.
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The door is locked, obviously. That doesn't stop him trying it, repeatedly twisting the handle, pulling and pushing, kicking. Even as he is now, it is stronger than him. Beyond the curtain that he thought would cover a window, he finds only a sheet of metal, bolted deep into the wall with thick pieces of steel.
He doesn't know what this place is, or where it is. Has it been created to house him, or was it really a home once, the previous occupants victims of his former brother's insatiable thirst? Are they laying somewhere within the walls, slowly rotting? Was the window already boarded, or had that been fitted just for him?
He pounds on the metal until his knuckles bleed, the sound reverberates around the room. Nobody comes.
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Edgar paces the room like a caged animal, fighting against the new and terrifying feeling within him. He is hungry, and there is nothing here that will sustain him.
Sam is back. He sits in a plastic chair at the far side of the room, watching quietly. The expression on his face is something akin to guilt.
"I could have warned you, you know," he says out of the blue one night.
Edgar stops his pacing and turns to look at him.
"I saw you one night. He wasn't around. I could have told you what he was planning, given you the chance to skip town. Do you know why I didn't?"
Edgar shakes his head. He is lying. He knows exactly what Sam is going to say before the words escape his lips.
"I missed you. I wanted you back, so I went along with it."
Edgar resumes his pacing. He is growing tired of looking at these walls. He is growing tired of waiting. He wants to know what the plan is.
"Do you forgive me?"
He glances over in Sam's direction. For a moment, the vampire looks just like the kid he used to know. "Shut up, Sam," he mutters.
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His body cramps again, every muscle tensing unnaturally. He lays on the ground in the fetal position, back arched, hands clenched as wave after wave of agony assaults his body. He hadn't known about this part; it hadn't made it into the comic books. He hears himself whimper. His skin is clammy with sweat, and he is sure that he can feel the humanity inside him dying.
A hand touches his face, cool and dry. It runs down his back, caressing. It pushes away the strands of hair that have attached themselves to the damp skin of his face, obscuring his vision.
"Keep breathing," a voice tells him.
He tries to do as he is told, dragging in breath after agonizing breath, exhaling through pursed lips.
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"I can help you, if you want," Sam tells him.
Edgar glances up, hopeful. If Sam could get his hands on a stake, he could finish it and be free, deny his brother his victory.
"Not like that," the vampire tells him, as though he had read his thoughts.
"Then what?" Edgar hates how weak he sounds; how small and afraid.
Sam looks at him with something akin to pity in his eyes. "He'll keep you here until you're starving," he said. "Until you can't think of anything but blood. 'Til you'd kill your own mother if she was here, just to get some relief. Then, when you're good and desperate, he'll bring in someone and watch you drain them dry. Believe me, I know. He did the same thing to me. Well, more or less."
Edgar watches him warily. If this is supposed to be helping, he doesn't want to know what would happen if Sam was feeling unhelpful.
Sam watches him right back. "The point is, I don't get the torture part of the plan. He's leaving it too long, I don't understand why he wants to make it so much worse for you."
"Because," Edgar says, "he's a sadistic bastard."
"Ha," Sam grins widely at a joke that Edgar hadn't realized he had made. "Yeah, there is that."
Edgar's jaw clenches as his stomach cramps again, wave of need washing over him as it does, urging him to feed. He would still be able to resist – at least he hopes he would – if he were faced with an opportunity to feed, but his resolve won't last forever. And one of these nights, he will learn just how weak he truly is.
"But there's something he didn't think of," Sam continues.
Edgar forces himself to look up at him through eyes lidded with pain.
"I fed tonight," Sam says. He looks pleased with himself, and Edgar is horrified to realize that the idea of Sam ending a life doesn't disgust him as much as it once had.
Sam waits, staring expectantly at Edgar as though expecting him to join the dots, but he can't even see the dots, all he can see right now is red.
Sam sighs. "You really don't get it, do you? I thought you were an expert at this. I'm chock full of what you need, and you don't need to do any killing to get it." He raises his wrist to his own lips, and Edgar catches a glimpse of his monster teeth for just a second. His arm turns around, bearing a small wound, slowly oozing thick, dark blood.
"No." Edgar shakes his head.
But he watches, fascinated, as the blood wells up slowly. As a vampire, Sam's body doesn't work in quite the same way, there is no gushing, dripping, it flows so agonizingly slowly, but eventually it begins to run down his arm, a line of red on his pale skin.
Edgar shakes his head again, trying and failing to look away. He closes his eyes. "No. Sam, please don't."
Sam wipes the blood away with a finger. Beneath it, the wound had already begun to close. He raises the finger to his own mouth, then hesitates, looking at Edgar. "Just a little taste," he says.
Edgar doesn't move as Sam's bloodied finger brushes his lips. His eyes remain closed as he hears footsteps crossing the room, the door opening and then closing.
He is alone. His tongue licks at the substance on his lips, and it tastes like life itself. He feels tears running down his cheeks and does not know whether they are of pain or relief.
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There are no weapons in the room, nothing that would even pass as a weapon. He has checked before now, assessing every item for it's offensive potential. The bed frame is made of metal, it is impossible to break, and he has tried. The chair at the other side of the room is constructed entirely of plastic and looks like it belongs with a cheap garden furniture set. Useless. The curtains are held up by an even more flimsy piece of plastic, and it was just ridiculous to consider attacking a vampire with a light bulb.
His brother had taken care of everything before he placed Edgar here, most likely understanding that the promise that they had made to one another as children still stands, at least as far as Edgar is concerned. He will not willingly consent to live as a vampire. Just because one brother broke his promise doesn't mean that the other will. So there is nothing that he will be able to use to help him, but he has the element of surprise, maybe that will be enough.
He is ready as soon as he hears the key enter the lock, pressed against the wall next to the door. The key turns slowly, Edgar tenses his muscles, ready to pounce. He has done this a hundred times in his head, it should be simple. Surprise the target while the key is still in the lock, incapacitate him with a blow to the head, lock him in, flee. It is what he will do next that is the subject of some debate, but that isn't important at this point. First, he has to get outside.
Sam pushes the door open and Edgar launches his attack. His punch lands perfectly, right on Sam's temple.
Sam reacts instantly. He doesn't fall or even appear to be surprised by the attack. He dives into Edgar, knocking him backward into the room. Edgar lands on the floor, hard. Shock waves travel up his spine from the point of impact. Moving impossibly quickly, Sam closes the door, locks it and pockets the key.
Edgar rolls onto his side, relieving some of the pressure on his throbbing lower back. He looks up and Sam is standing above him. Edgar tries not to show his fear.
A hand reaches down to him.
Edgar stares up in confusion. Sam flexes his fingers invitingly and Edgar gets the message. He accepts the help to his feet.
"What the hell was that?" Sam asks him.
"Just let me out, Sam," Edgar asks him. "Please. Tell him I surprised you and got away. There was nothing you could do." He stares pleadingly into eyes that he used to know so well. Sam would have done anything for him once.
But no more. Sam shakes his head. "You're breaking my heart, bud," he tells him. "Believe me, I wish I could do this for you, but I can't. See, the thing is, I don't want you to die."
And Sam is right, when he leaves this room, he will die. It may be at his own hand, or he may decide to go after his brother in one last, desperate attempt to reclaim his humanity. Most likely the result would be the same either way. He doesn't care.
"Don't you understand?" he asks. "I don't want this."
Sam nods sadly. "Yeah, Edgar, I get it, believe me. I didn't want it either. It's going to happen though, and there's not a damn thing anybody can do about it. You'll feel better soon, I promise."
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"I didn't even resist, did I?" Edgar asks one night. It has been bothering him for a long time, the one memory that has not fully returned to him, it is shrouded in a haze, and something important is missing, something that should be there.
Sam looks at him, blue eyes frowning under hair that is darker now than during his teenage years. It suits his vampire persona.
"When he gave me his blood." Edgar clarifies. "I've been trying to put things together, but it's still foggy. I don't even remember putting up a fight."
Sam shrugs. "He didn't want me there," he explains. "Hasn't spoken about it since."
"But why would I let... Sam, what the hell did he do to me?"
"Apart from the obvious?" Sam grins, then winces in sympathy as he notices Edgar's obvious distress. "He's a powerful guy. He tends to get what he wants."
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The pain is gone, reducing over the past few nights until it disappeared completely. He wonders whether that means that the transformation into half vampire is complete. He could ask Sam, but he doesn't really want to know the answer. The hunger is getting worse. It is more than hunger now, more than thirst. It is a desperation, clawing at his mind and his body from the inside, begging and pleading with him to give in to its demands.
He wraps his arms around his torso and squeezes tightly, eyes closed, blocking out as much of the world as he is able. It isn't enough, not when the torment comes from within himself. He is terrified, and he is furious that this has been done to him, but over, under and around everything else, there is the hunger.
It will be time soon. Soon, his resolve will be given its final test, and he will fail.
"Probably not tonight," Sam tells him gently. He feels the now familiar hand on his shoulder. "You'll have to ride it out for a little while longer."
Edgar forces his eyes open to look at his friend. "Can you read my mind?" he asks. He really doesn't want the answer to be yes. No one, least of all Sam, should be allowed to know that Edgar Frog has finally been broken.
Sam gives a gesture somewhere between a shrug and a shake of his head. "I don't know," he says. "Maybe a little. We can get cool powers when we turn, as you probably know – you should see what your brother can do – but I've always been good at reading people, maybe it's just that."
It's not just that. Sam had always had this strange kind of empathy; a way of understanding people as though they spoke a language that Edgar did not understand, but not to this extent.
"I don't want you in my head, Sam," he says.
Sam nods. "I know. I'm sorry."
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He's a kid. That is the first thing that Edgar notices about him. He's maybe sixteen, seventeen at the most. He isn't afraid. Instead, he looks genuinely happy to be here. There is a dreamy quality to his expression. If he didn't know better, Edgar would think he had been drugged, but are no drugs in the world that can make somebody volunteer to die in order to feed a monster. His brother has done something to this kid, probably the same thing that he did to Edgar when he forced him to accept his blood.
He can't help but feel a kind of kinship with the boy. And he can't help but envy him, being offered death rather than the alternative.
He backs off to the far side of the room, pressing his body hard against the wall, arms wrapped once again around his chest, as though they could hold him back from doing what he knows he is supposed to do.
They are alone in the room. He had expected his brother to be there, watching, eager to see it happen. Probably knows his presence would only strengthen Edgar's resolve.
"Run away, kid," he manages to force out through clenched teeth. Already, he can smell the blood through the thin layer of skin holding it in. He is starving. He is literally starving, his body crying out, screaming for nourishment, and the only thing that can make the pain go away is standing at the other side of the room, smiling trustingly at him. He longs for a good, sharp stake. Or even a blunt one. Anything to prevent himself from doing what he knows he is about to do.
He shakes his head from side to side. The monster inside him is indistinguishable now from himself. He feels it rise up inside him. His tongue touches sharp fangs and he does not recoil. He needs to do this; he wants to do this.
The kid is unconcerned. He smiles again, and there is something about the way his eyes crease when he does that takes Edgar right back to Santa Carla, to the summer of 1987. He smiles exactly the way that Sam used to, before he became what he had become. Edgar knows now why this boy has been chosen for him.
"It's okay," the boy tells him. His smile widens, innocent and trusting. His hand reaches into the pocket of his jeans and he pulls out a small razor blade. Edgar tries to look away, to close his eyes. He can't move, frozen in place as the two warring sides of his nature battle for control.
The boy touches the blade to his skin and presses down. Edgar watches, horrified, as he draws a line in red down the front of his left arm. Suddenly, he winces in agony.
It is as though the pain wakes him from the dreamlike state he has been placed in. He drops the blade to the ground, his hand flying to the cut he has made. Blood drips from between his fingers. He drops down to the ground, cradling his wounded arm as he looks right and left around the room taking in his surroundings in a state of panic.
"Run," Edgar says again, and it is as though the boy notices him for the first time. Their eyes lock, Edgar's stained as red as the blood dripping from the boy's arm, the kid's wide with terror. Still on the ground, he backs away by shuffling along the floor until his back hits the door. His uninjured arm reaches for the handle, painting it red. His fingers slip on the blood, but the handle does not turn, the door does not open. Had he really thought that his brother would make a mistake like that?
It doesn't matter; it would have been too late for him to get away anyway.
The scent of blood fills the room until there is nothing else.
Edgar's resolve crumbles.