Sam
She was interrupted in her breakfast by a knock on the door. Since she had zero interest in speaking with a salesman or, worse yet, her landlord, Sam simply ignored it and kept on eating. She took another bite of her turkey sandwich and slurped down a few spoonfuls of cereal.
But the knocking didn’t stop.
Sam kept ignoring it, and whoever was on the other side accepted the challenge, giving another series of sharp taps every few seconds that became increasingly urgent until the person was pounding on the poor thing.
Sam gritted her teeth and pretended not to hear it, turned up the TV extra loud in an attempt to drown out the noise. At this point, not answering the door was a matter of personal pride.
When the knocking finally stopped after two or three minutes following loud complaints from the neighbors living on the other side of the hall—thank god for Gus the alcoholic—Sam wiggled deeper into her couch with a smug little grin. She'd won.
Then the first note was slid under the door.
Grinding her teeth, Sam leapt up and stormed over there. ‘OPEN THE DOOR’, the paper read in a shaky, awkward hand, as though penned by a child.
By the third note, Sam finally broke and ripped the door open. “What?” she half-shouted, properly fuming now.
A woman was standing at the other end of the hall, already writing on another piece of paper pressed against the wall. She let it drop, forgotten, along with her pen as she turned to face Sam with an unpleasant smile. “Ah,” she said in a sultry, saccharine voice that reminded Sam of a sleazy pornstar. “Samantha Darling, I take it?”
Sam gave the woman a quick up-and-down look. She was strangely pale, with an almost gray complexion that really didn’t look healthy, although she had to admit that the woman was somehow quite beautiful despite that. And… what was she wearing? The woman had on a garish red blazer with huge puffy shoulders that looked straight out of the 80s, a plaid skirt, along with a pair of thick spectacles that might have looked appropriate on a 70-year-old accountant.
“Uh…?” was all Sam could work out, not quite remembering what she had been asked.
“My name is Nyx,” the woman said, and offered out her hand. Her left hand, Sam noted numbly as she shook it. “Might I come inside for a moment, Miss Darling?”
Nyx? What kind of name is that?
“Sam is fine. I think I’m good, though. Thanks anyway.”
The woman did not move an inch, staring straight at Sam like she was trying to bore holes through her skull. “I am hoping to perform an interview about a possible employment opportunity. It will only take a minute. Might I come inside?” She spoke with an odd, lilting accent that Sam could not place.
Sam frowned, blocking the door like a soldier committed to her last stand, determined to hold the enemy back at any cost. “What kind of employer conducts home interviews? And what job is this about, anyway?”
“Oh, I’m just your average gumshoe,” Nyx said. She pushed up her spectacles with a dramatic flourish where she stuck out her chest and sent her shiny black hair whirling all at once, like something out of a kitschy shampoo commercial. “My employer has tasked me with conducting background checks and preliminary interviews of select candidates for a special position.”
Gumshoe? Like a private investigator? Who calls it that anymore?
“Wait, have you been following me?” Sam said to the walking fashion disaster as soon as the idea appeared in her mind. Now that she thought about it, with the woman standing right in front of her as reference, she had definitely seen her before. On the bench reading a paper, in the crowd during the fight, maybe even at the bodega once. Had that been her she had sensed back at the graveyard, too?
“Collecting first-hand field data,” Nyx corrected.
Sam rolled her eyes. “Call it whatever you want—that doesn’t make it any less weird.”
“Might I come inside?” the woman repeated, more insistent this time. “I will not take up too much of your time.”
Was she wearing colored contacts? When her eyes hit the light just so, they almost looked… yellow. That couldn’t be natural, could it?
“Are you going to keep bothering me if I don’t do this interview thing?”
Nyx’s silent smirk was answer enough.
Sam backed away from the door with a sigh. “Whatever. You can do your thing while I eat. Just make it quick. Whatever you’re trying to sell me on, I’m really not interested.”
Nyx took a sharp, triumphant intake of breath through her nostrils as she crossed the threshold into the apartment.
What is it they say about inviting vampires into your house again? Sam thought as she plopped back down on the couch, wincing at a dozen fresh hurts along with the bitter shame they reminded her of. She chuckled to herself. Wouldn’t it be funny if she actually was a vampire?
“Uh, help yourself to some coffee if you want, I guess,” Sam said, waving her sandwich in the general direction of the kitchen before taking a bite. She turned off the TV, figuring this whole thing would be over faster if she pretended to pay attention. “Now, what's this about exactly?”
Nyx nodded her thanks and wandered into the kitchen, beginning to make herself a cup. “Well, like I said, you are being considered for a very special position.”
“Oookay. And what does ‘special position’ mean?” Having finished off all the cereal flakes, she lifted the bowl to her mouth and gulped down the rest of the sugary sweet milk dregs, letting out a sigh of contentment as she set it back down on the coffee table.
“Special as in ‘extraordinary’, ‘exciting’, ‘awe-inspiring’.”
“I get that part. I would like a bit more detail than that, if possible.”
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“It is not.”
Sam blinked, staring flatly ahead at her own reflection on the dead TV screen. Man, she looked like shit. “You… can’t tell me any details about the job you’re interviewing me for?”
Nyx nodded, still banging about in the kitchen. “Correct. I can’t tell you any specifics unless you pass the pre-screening and agree to begin the onboarding process.”
“This isn’t some kind of really elaborate prank, is it?”
“I assure you, Miss Darling, it is not.” The clattering of kitchen supplies was becoming more urgent, and Nyx kept throwing strangely concerned glances toward Sam.
“I told you to call me Sam. It’s…” Pausing, Sam stood, peering more closely at what the ‘gumshoe’ was doing, exactly. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t coffee, considering that she was holding a glass of regular tap water in one hand and a tub of cocoa powder in the other. “Do you even know how to make instant coffee?”
“I…” Nyx glared at the mismatched items in her hands, as though her failure was somehow their fault. “No,” she finally admitted.
Sam relegated Nyx to the kitchen table while she cleaned up the mess the madwoman had somehow managed to make, turning on the electric kettle and pouring instant coffee powder into two cups. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she said over her shoulder while waiting for the water to boil, “but are you, like, all right? Do you have some kind of problem with your brain?”
“I assure you, Miss...” Nyx cleared her throat, fussing with the oversized lapels of her blazer. “Sam. I assure you that my mental faculties are quite acute.”
“Are you sick, then? Again, no offense, but you don’t look so good. Maybe you should get checked out by a doctor or something.” Sam was becoming increasingly confident that this woman had broken out of a mental ward and somehow stumbled through a thrift store for the criminally unfashionable.
“Nothing like that. I am… not from around here.”
“Uh-huh.” Deciding that questioning things was not going to get her anywhere, she resolved to hurry this woman through whatever ‘interview’ she had planned as quickly as possible so she could boot her out the door. When the kettle chirped, she put the two cups down on the table and filled them up. She did not ask if Nyx wanted milk or sugar, and seated herself in the chair opposite the strange, deathly pale woman. “Okay. Since this is an interview, I’m guessing you have questions? Go ahead, then.”
Nyx took a gulp of her coffee, seemingly not bothered by the fact that it was still scalding hot. “Yes. Please answer the following questions truthfully. Feel free to elaborate if you like.”
“Right.”
“Question one,” Nyx said, reciting from memory. “Would you be interested in working abroad?”
“Uh… I guess? Maybe? I’m not opposed to it, at least.”
Nyx nodded. “Question two. Would you be open to working around people who might be considered ‘a danger to society’?” she asked, doing air quotes.
Sam frowned, rubbing at her forehead. “What are we talking about? Like, convicts and stuff?”
“Something like that.”
“Um… I guess it wouldn’t bother me, no.” Sam’s gaze followed Nyx’s hands as she raised her cup and took another big swallow. “Do you need to write these answers down or anything?” She’d already decided not to question anything, but she just couldn’t help it.
“No, that’s all right,” Nyx replied airily. “Would you be open to working with improving conditions in a third-world country or a near analogue?”
‘Near analogue’? What is this crazy bitch going on about? “Yeah, sure,” she replied with a shrug. “Why not.”
Nyx nodded, pleased. “Question four. Would you be open to working long-term in a place where you might not be able to contact friends or family?”
“I mean, the only family I have is my dad, and I haven’t seen him in almost a decade, so… Sure?”
“Excellent. Question five. Would you be open to working in hazardous and potentially dangerous environments?”
Sam sighed. Her patience had been trampled to death a long time ago, and her sense of propriety was quickly going with it. “Look, lady. I’m not interested in whatever organ harvesting ring you’re running, so can we skip to the part where you wrap this up and I say ‘thanks, but no thanks’ so we can both go on with our day?”
Nyx pursed her lips, taking a last thoughtful sip of her coffee and setting down the cup with a final-sounding thunk. “All right, Sam. If that’s how you feel, there is nothing I can do to stop you. Can I just ask you one more question?”
“Will it get you out of my face?”
“Yes.”
“Then go ahead.”
“Are you happy with your life?”
Sam flinched, feeling like she’d been punched in the face. No, she’d had punches in the face softer than that. “What?”
“Are. You. Happy. With. Your. Life?”
Sam was not sure what to say. She began to stammer out something about this woman minding her own business, but trailed off, and eventually fell silent. She stared into the shiny black surface of her untouched coffee, feeling hot steam waft into her face. “Uh…”
“It’s all right,” Nyx said. “You can tell me the truth.”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
Nyx shrugged, bringing her padded shoulders up comically high about her ears. “I suppose if you really are happy, then there’s not much reason for you to confide in a complete stranger. But if you feel that something is missing? If you are looking for a chance to reinvent yourself?” Another shrug. “Maybe taking a chance is not such a bad thing, if you don’t have anything left to lose to begin with.”
“Fuck you.”
Nyx stood, straightening a blazer that did not need straightening. “Very well. I can see that you’re not interested, so I will be taking my leave now. My employer will be very disappointed.” She gave a theatrical sigh. “But such is life, I suppose.”
Sam let the woman get halfway to the door. Then, sighing, she called out: “Wait.”
Nyx spun on a stiletto heel that looked more murder weapon than footwear, a fox-like grin on her face. “Could that be curiosity I detect in your voice?”
“I just have one question about this… special opportunity, whatever it is. Maybe two.”
“Please, ask away.”
“What’s the pay like?”
“Oh, I am certain you will find the compensation more than adequate, both financially and spiritually.”
I guess I should’ve known not to expect an actual answer.
“Let’s say I agree to start this onboarding process thing. When would I start?”
“Today. Immediately.”
“That’s pretty fast.”
“My employer does not believe in wasting time.”
“I don’t suppose you might be able to tell me who this mysterious employer is, exactly?”
“He has specifically requested to remain anonymous. Don’t worry—you will meet him in person soon enough.”
Sam blew out her cheeks. She gave her bare apartment a look, thinking about what she would be giving up. Nothing came to mind. “Fuck it, why not?” she said at last, half as a joke. “I’ll do it. Go ahead and ship me off to whatever back-alley clinic you’re going to carve me up at.”
At the very least, she figured, it probably wouldn’t be boring.
Nyx buzzed with excitement. “Fuck it indeed! A woman after my own heart, I see.”
“Sure.” Sam watched the woman edge closer to the table, fumbling with something in her jacket pocket. “So, what happens now? Do you have a car outside or whatever?”
“I will be taking you somewhere,” Nyx said, speaking slowly and deliberately, like the tone one might use to soothe a skittish animal. “Just relax and let me take care of everything. This will not hurt very much at all.”
“Okay, but… What?”
There was a flash of steel as Nyx stepped up beside her. Staring at the bloody knife in the woman’s hand, it took Sam several moments before she even began fumbling at the line of pain she felt across her throat, fresher than all of yesterday’s wounds.
Her hands came away wet. Looking down, she found them smeared red. More tumbled down the front of her, the entire front of her shirt quickly becoming saturated with blood.
“Oh,” Sam said. At least, that was what she tried to say, except only a wet gurgle came out.
She began trying to suppress the fountain of blood gushing out of her, but it squirted between her fingers, and she suddenly found herself all thumbs, unable to make herself move the way she wanted to.
She couldn’t breathe.
Nyx firmly guided Sam’s hands back down at her sides, one at a time, while whispering in her ear and stroking her hair. “Shush now, Samantha. It’s all right. Don’t worry. Everything will be over soon.” Suddenly, there was an envelope in front of her face, held carefully clear of the weakening spurts of blood. “This letter is written by my employer,” Nyx explained. “It will tell you everything you need to know.” She stuffed it into Sam’s right pants pocket and gave it a satisfied pat. “Please read it as soon as you get the chance.”
Sam wanted to laugh, but found that she could not. She was drowning. Fading. Everything was going all funny and blurry. As her head tipped down onto the tabletop, she could only produce a single coherent thought.
The woman had told the truth.
It really did not hurt very much at all.