Wicked Game Read Online Free PDF

government-sponsored scaremongering series including titles such as
Marihuana: Stepping-Stone to Despair
and
It’s Not Just Big Dandruff: How to Spot Head Lice
.
    It contains thirty pages of thin sheets, gathered into short chapters. I lean back on the lounge chair to read it. Not part of David’s curriculum, I’m sure, but it’ll take me ten minutes, tops.
    Yeah yeah, feed on blood, okay, can’t go out during the day, yada yada yada, super-seductive, whatever. Sounds like rehashed cliches to me, warmed-over Anne Rice, but hey, I scarf those trendy vampire novels like they were heroin-soaked potato chips, so I’ll play along for entertainment’s sake.
    I page ahead, looking for the big bad “Truth about Vampires.” Given the period, the “truth” probably means Communist infiltration of blood banks. This thing reeks of McCarthyism.
    One heading says, “Temporal Adhesions.” Hmm, that’s a new phrase. I reach for my iced tea.
    Which never gets to my mouth, because all my muscles have frozen. The words reverberate through my head in a documentary-style voiceover.

Vampires become “stuck” in the cultural period in which they died, what they refer to as their “Life Time.” To maintain cognitive comfort, a vampire will continue to dress and speak in the conventions of his or her Life Time. For example, a female vampire from the 1920s will often display “flappers-style clothing and claim that “makin’ whoopee” with multiple partners is “copacetic.”

As modern life intrudes on a vampire’s carefully constructed reality, he or she may rebel against these feelings of powerlessness. A benign response may take the form of obsessive-compulsive behaviors, which grant the illusion of control.

Every effort should be made to provide the law-abiding vampire with a means to connect simultaneously with the past and present, thus extending theirlives and preventing potentially disastrous unrest. Many vampires of a certain age utilize our network of protective custody homes, where they can “fade” without posing a threat to themselves or others.
    Typed in red ink, on a sidebar:

NOTE: Vampires with certain characteristics— including mental instability as a human, extreme youth or old age at the time of “turning,” as well as several unknown factors—are likely to react to their changing world in a violent manner. Since an agent’s primary duty is the protection of human life, he should take all precautions, including preemptive action (see Field Manual Chapter Sixteen, “Disposal”).
    Huh?
    This must be what David wanted me to read. He thinks the DJs are vampires.
They
think they’re vampires.
    No, nobody’s that delusional outside a mental hospital. It must be an act. A joke. A joke without the funny.
    I examine the pamphlet again. The paper doesn’t just
look
old—it feels brittle and smells musty as an attic. So they used old paper—and a typewriter, since these sheets would disintegrate in a printer or copier.
    Why so much trouble just to trick the new girl? Did they put on this farce for the other candidates?
    My fist clenches, crumpling the booklet. Maybe there were no other candidates. David called
me
for the interview, not the other way around. Why? Because of my past, he said. But how much can he really know about my past?
    And what the fuck does it all have to do with vampires?
    Doesn’t matter. If it smells like a fish, swims like a fish, quacks like a—well, it’s just really damn fishy. We’ve skipped Code Orange and gone straight to stoplight Red.
    I retrieve my cell phone and dial David, whose name and number are neatly printed inside the book’s cover.
    No answer. Easier that way.
    “David, I’m sorry to leave this message on your voice mail, but I’ve found an employment opportunity elsewhere.” Here’s where I should say something nice. “Thank you for your consideration.” Ugh. Try again. “I mean, thanks for the offer. I think it would’ve been fun.”
    I slap the