Suckers
Written By: Faria Basher
It was at the end of my seventh week at Covena that they first fed on me, the act occurring in the buried, forgotten hours of that Friday night, long after the janitor left and the last luminous monitor had been shut off. As in much of my life, there was to be no savior. It was futile of me to expect one. My fate had been sealed in its coffin, ironclad, from the moment I walked in to interview.
“Lucy, step into my office for a moment?” Vance had asked, popping his head out of the room.
Legs carried me into his office, but they weren’t my legs. When the door closed, I wasn’t the one to close it. I let them lay me down on the table. I didn’t move from that position because I didn’t care to. I was in a trance, possessed by a spirit which existed solely within the walls of Covena, that sterile, fluorescently-lit labyrinth in which I spent a third (at times a half) of my days.
They stood in a circle around Vance’s desk, the men. Though at that point I was no longer inclined to call them men. Nor could I call them monsters, their faces too familiar, their better nature too known to me. They had become hybrids, half-men existing within the liminal space between feigned civility and total barbarity. There was Larry – the accountant with whom I had eaten lunch on my second day – leering at me with his fangs out, spit dripping from the corner of his mouth. There was Michael – the director of human resources who reminded me of my dead father – unbuttoning my shirt, the one I had purchased from my neighborhood thrift store in preparation for this job. There was Jesús from my team – who had interviewed me all those weeks ago – now caressing my breast with his cold, meaty hand as I lay crucified before him. There were countless nameless faces in that room, with monikers I learned much later, long after they had drunk their fill of me.
And there was, of course, Vance, my manager, my boss, my custodian. He leaned over me and trailed his fingers across my cheek. He smiled at me but there was no warmth behind it. I smelled the day on him – remnants of his cologne, his three daily cups of coffee, the garlic dressing he had on his overpriced midday salad.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “We’re so happy you’re here.”
When they fed, they avoided my throat, instead biting me on my arms, my chest, and my legs. Vance bit me on my shoulder. If the bites were painful, I wouldn’t have known. I knew only that I received them, the men taking their turns to pierce me, to reach the warm, delicate lifeblood running through me.
I lay completely still and stared into the tiled ceiling while it happened. Any sudden movement could break my trance.
Once the men were satisfied, they trailed uniformly out of the office like ants in a row. It was Vance who remained. He put my clothes back on my body and used antiseptic wipes to clean my bite marks. I felt like a mannequin. I couldn’t move or speak. There was little I could have done, anyway. Little I could have said.
Vance called me a cab, shoved me in, and sent me on my way back home. The driver was a middle-aged man from Bangladesh named Kalam. He had been a lawyer in his country but left it behind in pursuit of the American dream. I thought of all the sorry things humans did to rise up in life, to get ahead of all the other sorry rats in this sorry race. Under different circumstances, I might have been more responsive to his tale of immigrant struggle. In my current state, all I could do was grunt in sympathy as I teetered in and out of consciousness.
It seemed to be enough for Kalam. “God bless you, Madam,” he said when I let out an especially sorrowful groan.
After we finally reached my walkup, I stumbled out of his taxi, managed somehow to get my key into the building door, and clambered up the four flights of stairs to my dingy studio apartment. Then I stripped myself of all my clothing and crawled into bed.
Once my head hit the pillow, I slept for three nights and two days. When I finally woke, it was Monday morning, and time to go to work.
***
The feedings continued on schedule, twice a month, always on a Friday night. I knew they were coming whenever Vance asked me to work late. I always said yes; it seemed ridiculous to say anything else. I had student loans to pay off and a small town fate to escape. I needed this job too desperately, relished that semi-monthly influx of cash into my near-vacant bank account.
In the daylight it became difficult to remember that the feedings happened at all. When the clock struck dawn, the monsters turned back into men that smilingly said Good morning, Lucy to me in the hallway, offered me snacks when I was hungry, or jumped in when a difficult client gave me trouble.
On my birthday, they wrote kind, supportive messages on my card and got me a chocolate cake. My favorite flavor.
Vance even had a bunch of us over at his place for an early Christmas dinner. I met his wife and child, and had a tea party with the latter. I walked around his extravagant, white-picket-fenced, outer-city house like a ghost, thinking the feedings must have been a dream. When Vance cut us pie and poured us wine, I knew this was the way I wanted to remember him: kind, amiable, and fatherly.
I let the feedings go on for a year. I probably would have let them go on forever, if it weren’t for Lamda, the intern. She arrived in the summer, fresh-faced and wide-eyed, as hopeful as I was on my first day. She attended college in the city and had just finished her junior year.
At the monthly all-hands, Lamda said Covena was her dream company, that she’d dreamed of working here ever since she was a teenager. I thought to myself that people had such predictable dreams.
Vance assigned me to be Lamda’s mentor. I took her under my wing, making sure to check in on her whenever I could, scheduling weekly one-on-ones to track her progress, answering any questions that she brought my way, and looping her into initiatives where I thought she’d bring value. There weren’t many women at Covena. The organization was entirely a man’s world. I did my best to offer Lamda a sense of sisterhood while she was here. She was an intelligent girl, and quickly caught on to the way of things. I told her she had a bright future ahead of her and meant it.
I suspected the men were feeding on Lamda when they hadn’t fed on me for three weeks. I didn’t want to believe it. I’d hoped, naively, that I was the only one they put through that horrid ritual.
When three weeks turned into four, I pulled Lamda aside for a chat.
“Lamda,” I said, trying slyly to examine her neck for bite marks, avoiding her eyes. She had a doe-eyedness to her that could be both charming and disarming. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
“Yeah,” she said in her usually-upbeat tone. “Is something the matter?”
“Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“If something’s happened,” I said, aware I was beginning to sound like a lunatic, “just tell me, okay?”
Lamda stared at me for a few moments. I had no choice but to meet her eyes. There was a lot in her stare – a camaraderie, a shared knowledge that we were two passengers on the same sinking ship, victims of the same ruthless predators. She didn’t need to tell me anything – I knew.
***
The town that I had spawned into, the one that might as well have been copy-pasted out of The Truman Show, had claimed my father’s life when I was ten years old. I refused to let it have mine. As soon as high school was over, I left my safe, predictable, middle-American existence behind for college in the city. I was young and cocky and wanted bigger things from life. Once I was out, I never looked back. I only returned for the occasional Christmas or Thanksgiving.
The city wasn’t gentle with me. I didn’t expect it to be. I endured four years of college with my head in the same sort of haze that the men from Covena put me through: the knowledge that something better was waiting for me at the end of all this pain. I studied hard and struggled harder. I was waiting for my pot of gold.
Upon graduation, the economy treated me with the same cruelty as the rest of the world. It took me a full year to land the job at Covena. It was a proper job, complete with prestige and health insurance, not the minimum-wage grunt work I did to pay the bills. I was grateful for it. I thought I was finally free of my podunk background.
I didn’t particularly like speaking to my mother, but I owed the woman a call here and there. I tried to get one in every week. She was glad to hear from me regardless of time or schedule, anyway. I called her shortly after my conversation with Lamda.
“Hi Luce,” she said.
“Hi Mom,” I replied. “How are you?”
“Not bad,” said Mom. “The weather's getting warmer down here. I think the mice are back. Saw one crawling around the kitchen countertop the other day. Oh, also, I don’t know if she told you the news, but Meg is engaged.”
“Nice,” I commented. If that tidbit about my cousin Meg was my mother’s attempt at urging me to follow in her path, she’d end up entirely unsuccessful. “Stay cool. And put some traps out for the mice.”
“Will do.” said Mom. “How are you?”
“Good. Nothing new here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I said.
I wanted to tell my mother about everything going on at Covena – the feedings, my suspicions regarding Lamda, my general dissatisfaction in the city – but I knew she wouldn’t understand. My world here was a wholly separate domain from that of my mother’s. I wished my biggest problem in life was a mice infestation.
“You sure? You sound a bit off, honey.”
“Everything’s fine, Mom,” I assured. “Just a little stressed, with work and all.”
My mother pondered over this revelation for a moment. Finally, she said, “You can always come back, Luce. Just make the call and come right back.”
“I know .”
“ Alright,” said my mother. “Just reminding you.”
***
If Lamda wouldn’t tell me whether the men at Covena were feeding on her, I wouldn’t pry.
On a Friday night, one more on which Vance hadn’t asked me to stay late, I pretended to leave the office. I hung around on other floors until it was time for the men to feed. Firm in my resolve, brimming with bravery, I crept back up to the thirty-first floor, where Lamda’s and my cubicles were located.
I watched from the shadows as the script played out: Lamda typing away on her computer into the dead hours of the night; Vance beckoning her into his office; Lamda standing up; Lamda practically gliding across the floor, milky-eyed, to the feeding.
It was a mirror image of what had happened to me. Of what I had allowed to happen to me. I took my phone out and dialed 911. I had no real plan in mind, just a potentially-idiotic sense of courage. Wielding my phone like a sword, my finger over the characteristically-green call button, I opened the door to Vance’s office.
Lamda lay, just as I had countless times, spread out on the desk as the men encircled her. Her shirt was unbuttoned, her shoes off. Vance stood by her head, gently caressing her cheek, looking into her eyes, preparing his lamb for slaughter.
The scene was so cartoonish that it made me want to laugh. It was so sickening that it made me want to peel off my own skin. I saw, for the first and last time, what I must have looked like to the men: pitiful and pathetic; forgotten by the city and prey ripe for the taking.
“Let her go,” I said.
The men’s heads snapped up. They banded together, fangs out, collectively taking a defensive stance
toward me.
“Lucy,” said Vance, detaching from the group and taking a step in my direction, “what are you doing?”
“Let Lamda go,” I repeated. “Lamda,” I continued, not breaking my eye contact with Vance and the men, “wake up. Get out of here.”
“Lucy,” said Vance. It was an admonishment. “Put the phone down, please.”
“You won’t do this to her!” I shouted. I didn’t want to cry. I hadn’t given myself permission to. Still, the tears came, rolling down my face in fat droplets. “I won’t let you!”
The room fell silent. I was shaking, my phone still in hand.
Then, Lamda sat up, her movements stiff and mechanical. She buttoned up her shirt, slid off Vance’s desk, and put her shoes back on. She scurried past me out of the room. I heard her collect her things and head to the elevator. I waited for the ding of it to let me know that she had safely left the floor.
“We’re hungry, Lucy,” Vance said once Lamda was gone. He inched toward me.
“Don’t,” I warned, backing out of his office. “I’ll call the cops. I’ll show them the bite marks. I told my mother about you. She’ll know if I end up dead.” The last part was a lie; I prayed to a god I didn’t quite believe in that the men wouldn’t find out.
“Lucy, we can work–”
“Stop moving!” I yelled. Behind Vance, the men’s eyes glowed red.
“Calm down.”
“You’re done,” I said. “You’ll never fucking touch me again.”
***
In the end, Vance and the others let me go. It was a miracle that I made it off the thirty-first floor that night. Once out, I resolved to never return. The grace I had been given would not come to me twice. I took the train back to my apartment and – like I did all those months ago – crawled into bed with the intention of never leaving.
Sleep evaded me. I spent most of the night trembling in the fetal position, wary of every sudden noise or flash of light that entered through my window . Fed up and having no one to turn to, I called my mother.
“Mom,” I said as soon as she picked up, “Mom, did I wake you?”
“Luce,” Mom groaned, “is everything okay?”
“I’m tired, Mom,” I sobbed. I had reverted to an entirely childlike state of being, devoid of any shame. “I’m tired and scared. I hate it here.”
“Lucy, I’m here for you,” said my mother, and though I knew there was no real weight behind the words, no real ability to change my life in a way that was meaningful, I believed them. The kind of mother I truly needed wasn’t in the cards for me; she had been given to someone else – a more fortunate woman. I had no choice but to embrace the one I had.
“Okay.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
“I know, Mom,” I whimpered. “I know .”
***
Months passed. I didn’t leave the city; I couldn’t bear to. I’d poured too much into it – sweat, blood (literally), tears, and money. Instead, I got a job at a coffee shop in my borough, about a ten-minute walk from my apartment. The work was unstimulating and the pay was nothing, but the clientele was nice. I liked the kids I worked with too. Most importantly, I was safe.
When Lamda walked in, nearly a year after her internship at Covena and that dreadful night, I barely recognized her. She’d cropped her hair short, and wore a lot more makeup than before. The changes gave her appearance a sense of maturity and self-assuredness. I was looking at a wholly different person.
“Hi,” she said once she reached the counter. “Can I get an iced caramel latte? With oat milk?”
“Yep,” I replied, ringing it up for her.
Lamda took a seat inside. Once the line cleared up, I walked over and took a seat at her table.
“Lucy, how have you been?” she asked.
“Good,” I said. It was the truth.
“I wanted to thank you,” said Lamda, reaching over the table to grab my hand. Her touch was cold and made me feel odd. “For what you did, a year ago.”
“It was nothing,” I replied. “I’d do it again.”
“And I’m sorry,” Lamda continued, “for what happened to you.”
“It’s fine. It’s over now,” I said. Wanting desperately to get away from her, and this conversation, I decided to lie. “I have to get back to work. Thanks for popping in. It was good to see you.”
We both rose. Lamda gave me a hug before heading toward the door. I clammed up a little. I couldn’t help it.
Just as she reached the exit, her coffee in hand, she turned back to say, “I’m joining Covena after I graduate.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Don’t worry.” she said, flashing me a smile. “Things are going to be different around there.”
In her smile, I thought I saw what looked like a pair of fangs, sleek and pointy. Though given the dim light of the coffee shop – and the brevity of the moment – I couldn’t be certain.
Faria Basher is a writer splitting her time across Bangladesh, the Philippines, the UK, and the USA. She was selected as the Regional Winner (Asia) of the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and later read for the 2026 prize cycle. Her work appears in Granta and The Core Review (by Fork Apple Press). Faria is deeply drawn to the odd, surrealist, and speculative — both in life and craft.