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Once Bitten

Fan Fiction by Adam Smith (USA)

Chapter 1

Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In) is a story by Swedish author John A. Lindqvist.  It was made into a motion picture by Tomas Alfredson and John Lindqvist, and released in 2008.  Both the novel and the film tell the story of Oskar, a lonely and bullied 12-year-old growing up in a suburb of Stockholm, and Eli, a vampire who is also 12, but who has been alive for over 200 years.  Eli moves in next door to Oskar and they become friends.  Their story ends with an ambiguous future as they leave together on a train after Eli saves Oskar's life.  "Once Bitten" tells a story of what happens thereafter, when Eli unintentionally turns Oskar into a vampire.

2 July 1983

“Want to play again?”

“Okay.  One more.  But it’s getting kinda late.”

Eli picked up the sticks, then dumped them out to start a fresh game.  She glanced at Oskar and smiled.
                                                                                                                            
“Your hair is getting long.  We really ought to cut it.”

Oskar sat facing her on the floor in his shorts and t-shirt.  A warm, summer night’s breeze blew in through the half-open window.

He made a dismissive, farting sound and ran a hand through his straight blond hair.  “I like it long.  And don’t tell me you’re a hairdresser, too.”

Eli released the sticks and they fell onto the floor in a jumbled circle.  She hunkered down to study them, then carefully pulled the first one out.

“Well, no--my hair stopped growing a long time ago.  But you sure are starting to look shaggy.  And besides, it doesn’t look too complicated.  How hard could it be?”

“I dunno.  Are you good with scissors?”

Eli laughed.  “I don’t even think we have scissors, come to think of it.  Now be careful . . . .”

Oskar looked up at her and grinned before focusing on the sticks.  Then he deftly slid one out of the pile.  “Piece of cake.”

“Cheater.  I saw it move.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Huh uh.”  He stuck his tongue out at her.

False thunderclouds rolled across her face.  “Don’t you point that thing at me.  Or else—”

“Or else what?”  He grinned at her with impish delight.

“Oh, you—”  She lunged at him across the little pile of sticks, scattering them.  But he had already spun around and was crawling away as he giggled.

Eli grabbed Oskar’s ankle and pulled herself on top of him.  He lay half on his side, trying to get away, but got no further as she began to tickle him mercilessly.

“I’ll teach you to cheat at Mikado!”

They tumbled and rolled on the floor, laughing and giggling as each of them sought to out-tickle the other.  Finally Eli declared defeat and they lay together, sweaty and panting.  Oskar put his head on Eli’s chest and she held him, gently stroking his hair and his back.

“Eli, I—” 

He felt her lips on his throat--a kiss?  Then he felt a sharp pain.

At first he was so startled, he did not think it was her.  It had to be . . . something else.  A bug?  A spider?  He flinched and tried to get up, but couldn’t.  And when he couldn’t get up, he realized what was happening.  Her arms were locked around him like iron.  A warm wetness trickled down his neck.

“Eli!  Eli!  Stop it!  Stop!”  He struggled, completely panic-stricken, in her arms.  Not happening Not Happening NOT HAPPENING--

Suddenly her mouth left him and for a moment he could feel the outpouring of blood from the wound, warmed by her panting breath.

In an anguished, terrified tone he heard her say, “Sorry, Oskar, I . . . I . . . Oh n--”  Then once again her teeth spiked into him with a kissing sound.

Excruciating pain shot through him like electricity.  Oskar continued to writhe in her steely embrace, but like a lioness with a gazelle in her claws, she moved with him, her mouth firmly latched onto his neck.  They thrashed this way and that on the floor for several seconds.  Then the pain began to leave him with his strength, and his movements slowed. 

“Eli, Eli . . . please . . . don’t . . . .”

As the wet, rhythmic gulping sound of his blood passing down her throat continued, Oskar’s movements became languorous.  The painful wound was transformed into a pleasurable sensation of her lips upon his neck.  Now he liked how it felt.  He tried to look at her and began to smile.  He stopped trying to escape and relaxed; then embraced her weakly.  Eli sensed the change and loosened her grip upon him.  Then she, too, was merely embracing him.  Slowly, she rolled him over so that he was lying on his back.

Oskar gazed dreamily with half-lidded eyes at the ceiling.  Eli was a warm softness upon his chest, gently lapping at his throat.  It felt so good to give himself to her, and as he began repeating her name over and over, he thought that there was nothing better that he could give her.  He never wanted it to end, never wanted her and her mouth to leave him.  His hands drifted, semi-purposefully, through her hair; he arched his back and neck to give her total exposure.  Then the ceiling became indistinct, and the darkness closed in.  He moaned softly as he began to fade away, his speech slurred and almost incomprehensible. “Eli . . .”

Then her lips left him and with their departure, a sense of disappointment overtook him.  Back; back; want you back.  Instead, he felt something strange pressed against his mouth.  Hard skin split open and something wet and sticky.  He heard Eli’s voice, calling to him as if from a long ways off, down a dark tunnel.  The voice was firm and commanding, but underneath it sounded scared.  “Oskar, drink. Drink.”

He didn’t want to drink; it was too nice where he was, and drinking required effort.  It was warm and dark, like fading off to sleep, and that was where he wanted to go.  But her voice was incessant, he could hear the urgency in it, and the thing followed his mouth, no matter how he turned his head to avoid it.

At last he took it firmly into his lips and licked it.  The bittersweet wetness began to flow across his tongue, and then it was good.  It was . . . All Things Good.  He felt a growing urgency inside him; wanted more.  He began to suck, and with the sucking consciousness slowly returned.

The thing in his mouth was Eli’s wrist.  The wetness was her blood.

Her blood flowing into him brought renewed strength.  First he became aware that his heartbeat had slowed to a near standstill, but now it was increasing, its thudding staccato loud in his ears.  He reached for her arm and seized it so that her open vein could not escape his mouth.  With his tongue he probed into the wound to keep it open and enlarge it; noticed that the blood seemed to come in waves, and realized he could feel her heartbeat with his lips.  Her wound had become his life, flowing into him, and he sucked her with all his strength.

Somewhere above his racing heart he heard Eli gasp in pain.  But she did not pull back, and he continued.

After what felt like a long time, he began to feel satiated and his demand for her slackened.  He felt very strange, yet drowsy and fulfilled.  The flow into his mouth seemed to taper off to a trickle; then stopped altogether.  He slowly, lovingly licked the remaining blood off her wrist.  Then it was withdrawn from him.

He felt himself being picked up and carried.  Like a little boy, being carried by his mother.  And he was placed in someplace soft and warm, with sheets and covers.  He became even more sleepy, and then Eli was with him.  She was holding him, and he could hear her softly crying.

And as he fell asleep he thought, Sorry, Eli . . . didn’t mean to hurt you.

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