this is a fic loosely based on the book and film of the same name. (well, the book and film are both called let the right one in, but i included the word "slip" because of the morrissey song.) you don't need to read nor watch the film to understand what's going on (though, i would recommend it, because this book is one of my absolute favorites—actually, everything by john ajvide lindqvist has left a lasting impression on me, so i recommend him as an author if anyone wants to read some good horror).
anyway! i'm hoping to update this, at least, once a week :) happy reading!
No one sees them move in.
"Wanted it done at night, that's all they wanted," says the driver, shrugging his broad shoulders. "Seemed really important. I told them it would cost a bit extra, but they didn't seemta mind. They looked a bit posh, if ya ask me. Not the sorts that would live around here."
Pen against paper, a headache. "Do you remember who they were?"
The driver chews on the inside of his cheek in thought. "A man with a teenage girl—maybe, I dunno the exact age. Could'a been a daughter, but the bloke looked too young. Might'a been a niece or a sister. Whichever. The man was wearing a suit. I thought that was odd."
"A man wearing a suit was odd to you?"
The driver shrugs again. "Like I said: They looked a bit too posh to be moving into those flats. Did something happen?"
Pen against paper again—scritch-scritch. "Yes," Detective Inspector Lestrade mumbles, his nose wrinkled in distress, "something happened."
No one sees them move in.
It happens in the dead of night, only known by the driver of the moving truck and the whispers of autumn in the air. "I should'a thought it was strange," the driver tells DI Lestrade. "There weren't much furniture with 'em. Maybe they were gonna buy some. I dunno. They had a bed, though. Gotta have a bed." The driver laughs, and he will be the only one to laugh that evening.
Greg Lestrade blinks when he hears the driver's laughter. Sergeant Sally Donovan, on Greg's left, grimaces. "Oh, yes," she says, "gotta have a bed."
They are not having a good day.
No one sees them move in.
The building is not very well-kept—the inhabitants mostly in their early twenties and students at the nearby university. Music is always playing—softly during the week, loudly on the weekends; no one knows where it's coming from. Sometimes it sounds far away, and sometimes it's next door.
Frequently, people yell and cause chaos in the halls, but the tenants make do.
It's not as deafening on the fourth floor. The more serious students occupy the units here. This is where the man and the girl had moved.
Their new home is the flat at the end of the hall. When they had moved in, no one had seen them. When they had moved in, someone had heard them.
He's sitting on his bed, back against the wall, legs stretched out with a textbook across his lap. His feet are hanging off the edge of the mattress. If anyone were to walk into his room, they would assume the position is casual and expected with someone who is studying. But he is listening, his head tilted to the side, surveying the sound of something being dragged across carpet. It might be a sofa, or it might be a bed. Judging by the introduction of a voice, he assumes it must be a bed. "Are you sure you want it there?" He can't describe the voice. It is patronizing.
Then, a huff of air, and another voice enters, "I won't be the one sleeping in it." This voice is deep, yet small. Distant. It has traces of a foreign accent he can't place. He touches the wall, quickly retracting it as if burned. There is a knock on his bedroom door.
"Yeah," he says.
The door opens. "Hey, John, you got a highlighter?"
John takes the one from his side and tosses it. "Here, Mike."
Mike catches the marker. He closes the door.
No one sees them move in, but John Watson hears them move in.
It's morning. The light comes through John's window and lays a patch of warmth on the floor. A pile of dirty laundry is caught in it. Mike knocks at John's door again. "I'm not your mother," Mike says, and John rolls from bed.
In minutes, John is out of the unit, piece of toast hanging from his mouth, with Mike by his side. It's cold in the hallway and colder outside. Mike wraps a scarf around his neck, and John munches. "Ready?" Mike asks. John shrugs. The doorknob down the hall rattles, but nobody comes out. John and Mike go to class.
By noon, John is tired. He has an exam in one of his afternoon classes, but he doesn't remember the material he had studied the night before. On the corner of his paper, John doodles a rather impressive-looking sunflower.
By evening, John is still tired. His feet drag against the sidewalk, his fingers fumbling at the set of keys in his jacket pocket, trying to pick apart the correct one by touch alone. His head is kept low to the ground, watching a shoelace as it trails behind the rest of him, never stopping to fix it, just making sure he avoids stepping on it while he climbs the stairs to the fourth floor.
It's a Tuesday, so the music John hears is soft and very classical. On the staircase between the first and second floors, there are a group of five people with their notebooks laid out in front of them, pencils stuck behind ears: a study group. A girl with blonde hair tells John his shoe is untied. John says, "I know," and continues climbing stairs. There's a lift, but the unspoken rule around here is to never use it. No one informs John of this; it was already ingrained in the back of his mind when Mike suggested they room together.
When he turns onto the fourth floor, John runs into a man. Both he and the man grunt and rebound and proceed to dust themselves of the other. "'Scuse you," John says, and the man says, "Of course," in an uptight tone, and then John and he are moving right along, as if no interruption had taken place. It only dawns on John as he is pulling the set of keys from his pocket that the man he had run into is his new neighbor. John goes down the hall to try to catch another glimpse of the man, but he is gone. John returns to standing in front of his door, keys in hand, brows furrowed, confusion clouding his expression.
The doorknob of the man's flat unit begins to rattle once more. John is already inside his respective unit.
Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, a woman gets shot, a man is strangled, and the building is evacuated for a drugs bust. John and Mike stand on the road with the rest of the university students, shivering and talking shit about their professors. Out of the corner of his eye, John sees a girl, about the age of the other residents, sitting on the cold ground all by herself. Her hair is long, almost down to her waist, and colored with loose, black curls. She has an arm protectively wrapped around her stomach. The dress she is wearing is dirty, and she smells about the same. When the wind picks up, John has to momentarily stop himself from breathing in order to not smell her. Mike notices the odor, too, as do the rest of the people John is with, but everybody covers their noses, and nobody says a thing.
The girl's fingernails dig into the ground, pulling up grass and holding onto the clumps of soil for dear life.
More into Wednesday morning than Tuesday night, they are given the all clear to re-enter the building. The girl follows Mike and John to the fourth floor, her eyes watching the backs of their heads. John has goose bumps along his arms. He tries talking to Mike, to distract from the girl following them, but it's hard. The girl's eyes are piercing-blue, her face long and angular, and John doesn't know if he wants to drop to his knees to kiss her feet or between her legs.
Mike ducks inside first, leaving John to watch the girl disappear into the unit at the end of the hall. The man John had bumped into earlier is nowhere to be found.
"Hey, John," Mike says, holding the door open, "you all right?"
John hears the click of a lock. "Yeah, I'm great."
During the witching hour of Wednesday morning, John lies in bed and listens to the voices on the other side of the wall. The man had seemingly reappeared while John had slept; he is the one currently talking. "What are you talking about 'you had to leave the flat'? I told you to stay. Why do you never listen?"
"Why do you never listen? I just told you what happened. If I had stayed in here, I would have drawn more attention to myself than need be. I called you. You said I could come in. You know." It's the same voice John had heard the first night, the deeper one. The conversation implies the filthy girl with the blue eyes and overwhelming stench is in possession of the deep voice with the strange accent. John thinks it interesting. He turns onto his side, facing the wall, almost willing himself to vanish and surface in the other room.
It's quiet for a moment, and then the man with the opulent voice begins to speak again, this time much softer. John has to press his ear to the wall in order to hear. "Did you empty the bathtub?"
The girl answers in an even softer voice, "Yes."
"So, I will need to go out again tonight so you will be… well tomorrow?"
A long pause. The girl mumbles, "Yes," and John hears the tell-tale sounds of the man sighing and leaving.
There is nothing for the rest of the night.
John wonders what's in the bathtub.
John wakes up at a reasonable hour. He eats breakfast with Mike in the too-small kitchenette. "Have you heard anybody talk about the people who moved in?" John asks, stirring his cornflakes with his spoon. Mike has always been friendlier than John. "It looks like that man could go to university. I dunno about the girl, though."
"No one's talked about them," Mike says. He pours himself a cup of coffee. "As far as I know, we're the only ones who know they live up here." Mike laughs. John does, too.
The blonde girl points out John's untied shoelace again.
"I know."
John doesn't run into the man this time.
When it hits the weekend, the music grows louder, making it unable for John to concentrate on his coursework. Despite the noise, Mike stays in while John attempts to make friends with a group on the second floor. By morning, John's head is pounding, his lips are bruised, and he thinks he spent the night with a boy named James.
To embarrass himself further, John tries to shove his key into the wrong lock. The ritzy man in the unit at the end of the hall opens the door to look down at John with his own icy eyes and hooked nose. John gives a sheepish wave. "Wrong flat."
"Yes." The man doesn't move. John glances over the man's shoulder. Newspapers are scattered across the floor. Some look rather old. "I would advise you," the man politely scolds, "to go back to where you came from."
"Next door?" John points.
The man narrows his eyes. "Are you trying to be funny?"
"You aren't very threatening." John smiles. Surprisingly, the man does, as well.
"Yes." He shuts the door in John's face, locks it.
John thinks about his bed and pushes his key into the correct lock this time. Mike is sitting on the sofa, eyes on the television.
"Had fun?"
"Loads." John goes to bed.
By Monday, John is back to being a functioning member of society. He goes to class, takes notes during the lectures, and even studies once he's back in his room the following evening.
John is highlighting key concepts in his textbook when someone knocks on the door. Since Mike is already in the sitting room, he answers it. "Hello?" Mike says.
From his room, John can't hear the exchange happening at the door, but he soon learns it isn't because he's in his room; it's because the person standing on the other side of the door hasn't uttered a word.
The bed creaks as John gets off it. He pokes his head from his room, glancing at the doorway, seeing Mike still standing there, one hand on the door and the other by his side. "Is there something you wanted?" Mike asks, ever patient.
John takes a step out, standing on tiptoe. The unkempt girl is there, in the same dress as the last time they had seen her. Tall, with little to no breasts, her face is streaked with something rusty, and her hair is knotted together in pathetic excuses for braids. She is staring at Mike, eyes wide, lips parted. It's a strange sight indeed; John can't stop himself from walking forward until he's standing right next to Mike. "Something wrong?"
The girl's head snaps toward John. Her pupils dilate, nostrils flaring, and then she's rushing down the hallway, back to the safety of her room, the hem of her dress flowing around her pale thighs. The door shuts with a loud slam.
"Well, that was something," Mike comments. He goes to close the door.
John stops him. "How about I go and see what all that was about, yeah?" Mike doesn't object, and so, that leaves John knocking on the man and the girl's door in nothing but his sweats and bare feet.
Before John raises his fist to knock, he catches the tail-end of an argument. The man is not doing a good job at not attracting attention. "What did I tell you about leaving? Why do you never listen to me?"
John knocks before he can discover an answer. When the man sees it is John knocking, his eyes roll, and he begins to shake his head. "I don't have time for this." And he shuts the door.
The girl was standing behind the man, timid, hands wringing at the end of her dress. She looked at John, and John looked back.
"I think he might be abusing her," John theorizes over breakfast. He's chewing on apple slices.
Mike snorts. "Why do you think that?"
"I keep hearing them argue. She isn't allowed to leave the flat. I don't know if he, if he hits her or anything, but he is restricting where she can and can't go, and that's abusive, right? That's gotta be abusive."
"Sure," Mike says, nodding. "Abusive, yeah."
John angrily chews.
John sees the girl again.
It's nighttime. Classical music plays from wherever again. John is heading up the stairs after grabbing a bite to eat from the vending machine on the first floor when he almost tramples her. She sits on the top step, an arm around her stomach again. Her hair is still in braids, and she still is in that dress. "Don't you, I don't know, ever change?" John asks, a bit rudely in hindsight. He quickly shakes his head. "I didn't mean, I mean I did mean, I mean, I don't know." His shoulders slump.
She eyes the bag of crisps in his hand. "You don't like the way I dress?" She asks this in such a way to suggest she genuinely doesn't know about changing clothes.
"Not when you wear the same thing every day, like a, a, a bloody cartoon character—no." He gestures vaguely as he says this, her eyes never leaving his hands. John notices this. He opens the bag of crisps. "You want one?"
Her fingers curl into her side, her arm acting as some sort of anchor as she holds herself together at the stomach. "I can't eat that."
John can hear her stomach growl from here. "Too greasy? Yeah, I know. I love them, though." He takes out a crisp and offers her the bag. It's original flavoring. Everybody likes original. "Are you sure? You look hungry." He doesn't tell her about her stomach. She might be insecure about things like that.
Her eyes widen, pupils doubling in size, as she gazes at John's hand—always his hand. Before John can say anything, she is leaping from the steps and fleeing up them at such a speed John could never accomplish, even after his years of rugby.
John climbs the rest of the stairs. When he reaches the place she had been sitting, the floor is already cold.
"Okay," John starts, "he is definitely not letting her eat."
Mike cleans his glasses on his scarf. The wind blows. "John, stop."
John doesn't stop.