Being both a fan of Lindqvist's Let the Right One In and both adaptations (specifically Let Me In) as well as the recent Scott Snyder/Stephen King comic book American Vampire, I thought it'd be cool to write a story where my two favorite vampires in all of fiction (comparatively sweet little Abby and Snyder/King's creation, Skinner Sweet, a gleefully redneck, psychopathic vampire Jesse James-cum-Charlie Manson) meet. I figured these two would have bumped into each other at some point during their both immortal lives, so I decided it'd be a cool idea to play with. Plus, given the fact that the sequel to the first volume of American Vampire has disappointedly underused Skinner thus far, it's nice to give the evil old bastard a visit.

Hope everybody enjoys it.

SWEET DREAMS

ARE MADE OF THIS

The motel room just outside of Gatlin, Nebraska was cheap and smelled like dried semen and stale beer. It frightened Abby somewhat that she had gotten used to rooms like this, but at the same time she was grateful for it. Owen was still getting used to it. She had been on the run for over two hundred years, had ping-ponged from one end of this country and back again every decade or so, never settling, never resting, always running toward or away from…something. If she wasn't scrounging for her next meal, she was outrunning some Bible-toting wannabe Van Helsing who had read far too much Stoker, or some disaffected teenager in white make-up and dark clothes with the names of bands like Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath and Judas Priest printed on the front, wanting Abby to make them like her; to take their hands and draw them into the seductive, blood-drenched, romantic darkness they believed she inhabited. Owen, on the other hand, had never been out of Los Alamos in his life, according to him, except for one camping trip to Rocky Mountain National Park he took with his parents two years ago, just before things started going south in their marriage.

They talked about things like that a lot now. Abby loved to listen to him talk. She had always been naturally quiet…at least she thought she had. Her memory, her actual memory, only extended back eighty years or so. The rest of it was wrapped in a foggy haze, dream-like in its lack of clarity. Perhaps she had been talkative once, bubbly and excited, like a normal little girl, like Owen could sometimes get her to be. More often than not however, she listened. Owen would rattle through his various complaints and excitements and pleasures and miseries, and Abby would soak up his words with a smile on her face, talking only when she really had something to say. Or, if he had said something that had particularly touched her or, even better, gotten her to laugh, she would grab his hand or playfully slap his knee. She knew his favorite was when she would lean forward and kiss him softly on the cheek. His pale cheeks would flush red with color, and he would stare at his feet as if they had eyes. He was fragile. He was soft and unaccustomed to this life on the run, but he was trying. He tried so hard every day to be her hero, her knight in shining armor, her cowboy. And Abby loved him for it.

They had been traveling for six months now, and Abby had not fed off him or asked him to procure blood for her. She refused, absolutely, totally, definitely not this time, nuh-uh, no-siree. After seeing what it had done to Thomas, to all of the others who had been charmed by her slow smile and kind eyes, she was not about to have that for Owen. She lived off animals now, as bland and tasteless as they were. It had taken her two centuries to figure this out, but last time pays for all, right? People can change, and what was a vampire but a person with a horrible addiction. These were the things she told herself to help her fall asleep.

It still haunted her; what would she do when Owen got taller? When his voice got deeper? When one day she woke up and he wasn't hers anymore; when he belonged to the complicated world of adulthood, and all of the baggage that entailed. For someone who had lived as long as she had, she still could not comprehend the behaviors and frailties of adults. How they managed to complicate the simplest of things, destroy the most beautiful. It seemed as though they enjoyed crafting a world for themselves in which they dwelt in constant misery. Perhaps then being a grown-up then wasn't so much different from being a vampire; lonely, dark, and constantly seeking a long-lost innocence

Owen was her innocence. Owen was her simplicity and her beauty. He had insisted on squeezing into the bathtub with her, and he lay next to her now, snoring softly and every so often shifting his weight. Her cheek rested softly atop his head, and her right hand was clasped tightly over his left, down at his side. She wished there was a way she could crystallize moments like this, make them as eternal as her. There could be a way to do this; if she could exist, was it so ridiculous to think that other magic could be present in the world? But if there was, she didn't know how, so for now she could only enjoy them while they lasted.

There was a diner called Red Cloud's next door to the similarly named motel. It advertised 24 hour service, and the alarm clocked resting atop the toilet above them read 12:15 am. Owen's favorite breakfast was chocolate chip pancakes. He rarely got to eat them; when they were on the move, it was somewhat hard to lug a trunk containing a two hundred year old vampire into the nearest Denny's. Wouldn't it be a great surprise for him to wake up to a dish of pancakes swimming in chocolate goo and syrup? She decided it would be. He deserved it, after how hard he had been working to stay tough, be strong like her. She kissed him just below his ear, and felt him shudder. Slowly, she extricated herself from behind his sleeping form, and clambered out of the tub. She pulled the covers up over his chin; the thermostat very rarely reached bathrooms in these kinds of places. Abby pulled on a pair of jeans and a ratty Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt she had picked up somewhere that were her travel wear, and grabbed some money from the trunk. She thought a twenty would be enough as she left the room, intent on giving her Owen some small compensation for loving her.

The diner was small with a circular bar/kitchen area dominating the center, and four rows of booths dominating the walls surrounding it. Kitschy Wild West memorabilia dominated the walls; phony Indian war-bonnets and arrows, along with the obligatory reproduced and retouched shots of the Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, Sitting Bull, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill, and Billy the Kid. Abby had met the Kid once, on her first swing through New Mexico with a traveling oddities show. He was much more handsome than the picture made him out to be, and in the haziness of her memory, Abby recalled having somewhat of a crush on the young outlaw with the lop-sided grin and the Winchester carbine slung lazily over his shoulder.

The only other patrons were two men in Carhart vests and baseball caps who looked to be truckers, and a tall lanky young man with long hair reading a newspaper and wearing a cowboy hat at one of the corner booths. A half-finished chocolate milkshake sat in front of him. The short-order cook was a short, burly man, balding and staring at her with tired eyes behind Coke-bottle glasses. He reminded her of an older Buddy Holly, whose records she had liked so much back in the '50s.

"You're up awful late, ain't ya darlin'?" he said, and his easy down-home drawl put her in mind of the kid from Lubbock even more.

She ducked her head and tucked a tendril of blonde hair behind her ear.

"Yeah, my daddy and I just checked into one of the motel rooms. He's-he's had kind of a bit too much to drink," she said, drowning the last few words in dredged up sorrow. The cook eyed her with real pity.

"Yeah, that's too bad," he said, probably all he could think to say. She looked at him with what she hoped was naïve optimism. "Yeah, but it's happened before, and if he eats something it usually perks him right up. So, umm, I was wondering if I could get some pancakes?"

"Pancakes?"

"Yup. Chocolate chip."

The cook raised one bemused eyebrow. "I usually go for coffee and toast, but whatever thrills ya'. Anything else?"

Abby scrunched up her face in though. She saw the chocolate milkshake the young man was drinking again. "How about some hasbrowns, and a chocolate shake. Can I get it to go?"

The cook looked like he might protest, but then remembered that her "daddy" was probably lying in a pool of his own sick over at one of the motel rooms right now. He smiled exhaustedly. "Sure thing, darlin'. Gimme twenty-five minutes, I'll have that right out."

"Thanks," she smiled, and took a seat at one of the booths.

It took about five minutes for her to realize that the young man drinking the milkshake and wearing the cowboy hat was watching her. He had lowered the newspaper, and was staring at her frankly. Lots of men stared at her, thought she was cute or beautiful or sexy or whatever. In her experience, there were two types of men who stared; men who thought she reminded them of someone-their little sister or their first schoolyard crush. These men were harmless, and Abby took care not to use their purely fond regard to feed on them. The jogger back in Los Alamos had been an unfortunate exception. Then, there were men who wanted to do things to her Abby didn't like to think about. Things that had been done to her that she wished she could forget, but allowed them to happen because it all led back to the never-ending quest for food. Abby had long expunged herself of the guilt of feeding off of them. With this man, however, it was neither nostalgia nor lust. Abby quickly realized it was a look of recognition, and when the man stood up and approached her table, a cocky swing to his stride and his thin lips pulling back into a rattlesnake grin, she recognized him too.

Skinner Sweet was a legend, on both sides of the fence, human and vampire. To the average sunlight-friendly citizen, he was a legendary Western outlaw, born in 1850 to an alcoholic farmer and an ex-prostitute on the plains of Kansas. His mother died of consumption when he was four, and his father did his best to raise him by administering daily beatings which finally ended when Skinner blew the man's head off with his own shotgun when he was fourteen, lighting out for the Western territories. Over the next sixteen years, he built a name for himself as one of the most savage and merciless killers to ever strap on a six-gun, riding with various outlaw gangs before putting his own outfit together in 1875. His gang embarked on a reign of terror from New Mexico from Montana, establishing a hideout in the Colorado Rockies. Sweet's crimes were characterized by vast amounts of money taken (he was a skilled planner), as well as wanton and often unnecessary acts of bloodshed. In his last robbery, that of a bank in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Sweet and his gang had raped three women customers, sodomized the bank teller, and needlessly shot and killed a four year old boy. It was this crime that spelled his downfall; the Pinkerton Detective Agency unleashed their top manhunter on the Sweet Gang; Special Agent James Book, a Civil War veteran who hired out his gun to various law enforcement interests before taking a position with the Pinkertons in 1879. Book led a posse which killed a majority of Sweet's men in a shoot-out at a Leadville whorehouse, during which Sweet was captured. Skinner's most trusted lieutenants, Ronnie Jeeks and the twin Blackmouth brothers, Sam and Ennis escaped, however. Sweet was summarily tried and sentenced to hang in Las Cruces.

On the train to Cruces, Ronnie Jeeks and the Blackmouth twins engineered an idiotically planned escape attempt by derailing the train carrying their boss as well as the lawmen that captured him. A majority of the passengers were killed in the wreck, and the outlaws murdered those left alive. Agent Book survived the wreck and engaged Sweet in hand-to-hand combat, killing him. Jeeks and the twins fled once again, and had never been heard from since. Sweet's body was taken back to Sidewinder, Colorado, the closest town, where he was buried without ceremony in the town's Boot Hill.

That had been only the end of Skinner Sweet's human life, however. Abby had never been clear on the details; the story changed depending on who was telling it, and Skinner himself had never been totally honest with her, but somehow Sweet had wound up infected with the blood of a so-called "Old Country" vampire, similar to the one who had attacked her so many years ago. Somehow, a new breed of vampire was created in Skinner; he was able to walk during the day, the sun actually giving him strength rather than causing him to burst into flames. Sweet had used this to his advantage over the years, first in getting revenge upon the lawmen and Old Country vampires he blamed for his condition, then in making his fortune in various nefarious enterprises throughout the country.

When Abby had met him back in the 1930s, he had just sold his interest in a casino/brothel he had owned in Las Vegas and was now burning through the American Southwest robbing banks once again with a new gang, causing just as much bloodshed and havoc as he did in the previous century. Only now, the blood of bullet-riddled lawmen and bank tellers wound up in Skinner Sweet's gut instead of on the floor. Abby knew this chapter of Skinner Sweet's life better than anyone. She was the last surviving member of his gang, after all.

Right about now, Skinner Sweet was the last person Abby wanted to see in the entire world. He made it worse by talking and sliding lithely into the seat across from her.

"Well, well, well. Lookee what the cat dragged in. Lynyrd Skynyrd. Very 1973. Get with the program, it's the '80s, dolly'. I always thought a kid like you would stay up with the times better'n that."

"I'm about one hundred years older than you, Skinner."

"Yeah, and you never once stopped remindin' me."

"What do you want, Skinner?"

"Hell, dolly, can't a fella drop by to see an old friend?"

"We were never friends."

"Don't say that, now. We had ourselves some good times as I recall. C'mon, did I ever try to take advantage of you? Slime my way into your pubescent little panties? I know other fellas did, but I never."

She sighed. "Yeah, that's true. You never did."

"Exactly. So…what's up then, Miss Sourpuss?"

"Nothing. Look, I just don't want to talk right now. Can you leave me alone?"

"I'll be out of your way shortly, now quit bein' so unfriendly, I ain't seen you in what, fifty years? Since '35, when you started shackin' up with that farm boy, what was his name…?

"Thomas."

"Thomas. '35, goddamn. How the time does fly when you're immortal. You were always the only night crawler I could half-way stand to be around, so consider yourself lucky I'm not rippin' your throat out right now."

"I'm thrilled. What are you doing here? Nebraska was never your scene, if I remember right."

"Nope, that's where you forget, I'm a country boy at heart. But you're kind of right, I suppose. I'm actually on my way east. There're some wops up Manhattan way, say they pay pretty good when you ice the competition."

" 'Ice' ?"

"Ice, y'know, kill? Jesus Christ, you are fuckin' old, dolly. When does menopause kick in?"

"What's menopause?"

"We're gonna ride right past that subject on account of I don't feel like playin' Mommy right now."

"Ahhh, but you were always so good at that."

"I was, wasn't I? Kept ya fed, kept all the other boys from gettin' their greasy baby-fuckin' mits on ya'."

"Making me help you kill."

" 'Making you'? Dolly, who the fuck do you think you are, a goddamn Girl Scout? Mind if I smoke?"

Abby shrugged as Skinner dug around in the pocket of his blue work-shirt for a pack of Camels and a lighter. He lit it with a flourish, and stared across the table at her, his icy blue eyes frightening and exciting her all at the same time. Too many skeletons were being dragged kicking and screaming out of their closets.

"When was your last?"

"Last what?"

"Last time you danced two-step, what do you think I mean? Your last kill, short round."

"I don't remember."

"Don't remember, eh? You were always a terrible liar. Gimme gimme, all them juicy details."

She hesitated. The food would be done soon, and then she could leave. In the meantime, she might as well just play along.

"It was in Los Alamos."

"Oh yeah, A-Bomb City, USA. Who was it, c'mon, don't skimp here."

"It was a policeman. He found out where I lived."

"Came tryin' to kill ya'?"

"No. I don't think he knew what I was. He thought I was just killing people for fun."

"Ah, but it is fun, ain't it?"

"Not to me."

"We'll get back to that later. Anyway, what happened next?"

"He caught me asleep in the bathroom. Tried to uncover the window. I woke up in time, and-yeah. Now I'm here, and he's…"

"Deader'n Wild Bill's last poker hand. Bet you ripped him up but good. You always had style, kiddo. Bit messy, but…stylish in its messiness. Getting back to that farmboy you took up with, how is the little shit?"

If she told him about what happened to Thomas, she might have to tell him about Owen, and she couldn't let him know about Owen. Couldn't, absolutely couldn't, no way Jose. Nor could she lie to Skinner, either. She never could. His reptilian eyes always seemed to look right through her.

"He's gone."

He stuffed out his cigarette on the underside of the table.

"Gone?"

"Ah-huh."

"What happened there?"

"He got sloppy."

Skinner laughed bloodily. "And we all know what happens to Abby's boys when they get sloppy, don't we? Too bad. Thought you really liked him."

"I did. A lot."

"Yeah, you must've, to leave my pretty ass. I never did get what you saw in him. Four eyed little bastard, had that God-awful birthmark right below his eye. You always dug them pathetic ones didn't ya, dolly? This one you've hooked up with now is no exception."

Abby froze in her seat. Her expression had to be one of pure horror, because Skinner laughed his bloody laugh again. Pure horror always made Skinner laugh.

"Oh c'mon now, girl. You had to know I seen them farmers drop you off. I'd know that fuckin' trunk of yours anywhere, had to tote it around for seven goddamn months. What's his name?"

"I'm not telling."

It was Skinner's turn to sigh as he lit another cigarette.

"Okay, dolly, here's how this is gonna work. Either you quit it with this ambivalence bullshit and treat me with the respect deserving an old friend who kept your ass in blood for nearly a year, or I kill everyone in this God-forsaken little shithole, then drag you on over to the motel room where you and your little boyfriend are staying, where I will proceed to do all manners of horrible, unspeakable things to him, while you are forced to watch of course. Then…"

"You'll kill me, yeah, I get it, you're like a broken record."

"No, dolly, even worse. I'll let you live."

Abby glared at him. If looks could kill, she thought wishfully.

"Now, tell me, dolly. What's his name?"

"Owen."

"And? You in love with him, too?"

"Yes."

"Ha. Does he know he's gonna wind up supper in approximately forty to fifty years?"

"It's not gonna be like that."

"I love how sure you sound. Ya' know, I like a lot about you, Abs. You're quiet, you don't get in the way. That cute, innocent, everybody's-baby-sister thing you've got goin' on helped us on numerous nighttime jobs. But, want to know one thing I always fucking despised about you?"

"Not really, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me anyway."

"Good girl. You think you're better than all of this. You think you're still twelve years old, Abigail. You think you're still just this inherently good little kid who just has a really fucked up disease that makes her do bad things. You think what you are is just a devil inside you. But I've seen you in action, sweetheart. I've seen you kill. You like it, and there ain't no point in denyin' it. You say I made you? C'mon, you know the feeling of a fresh kill; the taste of it flooding your mouth, like every good flavor in the world combined into one. The way just one gulp can fill you up like nothing else in the world."

Abby could not help but notice that Skinner was salivating. Too her disgust, she was too. He wiped it from his lips with the cuff of his shirt, and she disgusted herself even more by unintentionally mimicking him.

"It's something I have to do, Skinner. And I'll never be like you."

"And what's being like me entail?"

"Being crazy."

"Crazy, huh? I'll tell you what's crazy, you toting around fresh meat for five fuckin' decades and thinking you…you what, you love him? Gimme a break, dolly. So, what, people can love cheeseburgers? People can go on dates with fried chicken, marry spaghetti? I get along with a lot of humans, Abs. But at the end of the day, regardless of personality, all I can think of is how good they taste."

Abby licked her lips, staring at the scarred table-top in front of her. Someone, a long time ago, had carved a heart into the surface, along with two names; TRAY + KATHLEEN. She ran a finger over it, tracing it with her nail.

"I lied earlier, Skinner. I lied and you didn't even notice."

"What do you mean?"

"My last kill was in Los Alamos, but it wasn't that policeman."

"Who was it?"

"When I met Owen, there were these bullies. They picked on him a lot, at his school. I got him to stand up to them, be strong…"

"My heart bleeds."

"He did though, he really did. Whacked one of them really hard with a stick, he told me. Things were finally getting good for him. He was happy. I made him happy. And he made me happy too."

"Jesus wept. Could this fucker get more boring?"

"He helped me kill that policeman. I know that's nothing new. Lots of men, lots of boys, have done that. But…I don't know. It didn't really bother me when they did it, but it bothered me when Owen did. So I left. Or at least I tried to. I got twenty miles out of town in a cab, and then made the driver turn around and drive back. I couldn't leave him, no matter what. I knew…I knew I was the only one who could take care of him. I went to this swimming pool, where he went to lift weights sometimes. I flew up to the roof, and I looked through this window. And…and these boys, these bullies…they were hurting him. Bad. And…even though it was in public, and even though there was every chance in the world of getting caught, I-I couldn't let them hurt him."

"Cut to the part that'll make this interesting for me."

She looked at Skinner coldly.

"I ripped them apart. One of the boys screamed for his mother when I tore his heart out. Another begged for me not to make it hurt so bad. But I did. I really did. And another didn't say anything, just cried and cried while I dragged him through the pool. There were pieces of them, all four of them, scattered around the pool when we left. Four of them, and I killed them probably in less time than it takes to tell it. And you're right, Skinner. I liked it. For the first time ever, I liked killing. Because I knew I was doing it to save someone I loved, and who loved me back. I was a hero. Just like in the storybooks my mom used to read. I-I was an angel."

Skinner had cocked his head back and was mock-snoring. Abby rolled her eyes. Skinner lifted his head, grinning at her and raising an eyebrow.

"Angel? That is some seriously faggotty-ass, deluded shit, dolly."

"Says you. The point is this; do people risk their lives for cheeseburgers? Put themselves in harm's way for spaghetti?"

"I don't know, dolly. I've had some mighty good burgers in my day."

"Order up!" The cook placed Abby's bag of food on the counter.

"That's me," she said. Abby rose from the booth, walking over to claim the food. She paid the cook and took the bag. Skinner still watched her from his seat, watching her with his ever-amused expression.

"So you're in love?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

"How long ago did you kill all them boys in New Mex?"

"Six months."

"Jesus Christ. What you been doin' to keep that girlish figure?"

"Animal blood, mostly. Tastes like…well, like water, pretty much. Old water. But it still fills ya up."

"Christ. That's what love does to ya', I thank God I'm a sociopath. I was gonna ask you to go to New York with me, but I guess there's no point."

Abby shifted her grip on the bag. "You guessed right."

"Well then. This Owen is one lucky boy."

"No. No, it's me who's lucky."

Skinner made gagging noises as Abby shook her head and walked toward the door.

"Hey, one more thing!"

Against her better judgment, Abby stopped and turned.

"What are you gonna do when he grows on you?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Haven't thought that far ahead yet."

Skinner smiled, but it wasn't quite as malevolent as usual. "Maybe you are still a kid."

Abby turned and walked out of the diner. There would be time to think about what would happen when Owen got older. For now there was nothing else to think about, besides pancakes. And love.

Only love.