The man stood from the concrete bench in his garden and looked at the sky. He saw neither star nor moon, but rather a swirling void. A maelstrom above. Deepest black and steel gray currents shot through with violet and crimson. He breathed deeply, taking in the scent of rose, sage, and freshly mown grass, and then he walked into the house, sat on the floor, and slit his throat with a razor.
It was a chance meeting in a grocery store.
Denis had been at home, gazing into his freezer. There he saw the familiar sight of stacked boxes, an assortment of prepared meals: frozen lasagnas; frozen pizzas; home-style meatloaf with mashed potatoes; batter fried chicken fingers; some Asian thing; and a lonely Lean Cuisine, a constant reminder of the diet he’d never started. On the nights his friends didn’t force him to go out, Denis invariably uncrated one of the plastic trays and listened to the empty hum of the microwave, droning like a monastic chorus—a serenade for the lonely. A requiem. Ever since Benjamin had died—from a congenital heart defect he hadn’t thought to share with his partner of six years—Denis had endured the pitiful whirring dirge before most of his evening meals, and he was sick of it.
He wanted a real dinner, and he intended to fix it himself, so he pulled on a t-shirt and stepped into his sandals, and left the house.
He first caught sight of Fred at the end of the produce aisle, turning a green pepper in his hand, studying it as if some mystery were etched into its emerald skin. Fred was dressed in a blue work shirt with a rust-colored tie cinched at his neck. The fabric of the shirt stretched over his barrel chest and belly, but it didn’t pinch; it simply looked fitted to the burly form, highlighting the bulk of Fred’s chest and the roundness of his shoulders. In many ways, Denis and Fred looked alike. Neither was particularly tall, both were thickly built, both wore full, trimmed beards, but they were not mirror images. Denis had never admired the face his mirror reflected as much as he found himself admiring Fred’s. The full cheeks. Smooth, tanned skin. He seemed to be the same type as Denis, only better at it. Denis perfected.
They crossed paths in the meat department—a ribeye for Denis, a cut of salmon for Fred. This time Denis caught Fred’s eye. They looked away and then back. Then Fred took a misstep because of his distraction, stumbling a bit. Denis smiled and moved on.
Only later did they actually speak. Denis stood in the frozen foods aisle holding open a glass door as he tried to decide between double mocha fudge and cookies and cream. Another freezer door opened beside him and he checked over his shoulder to find Fred, reaching in for a carton of Rocky Road. He held the cardboard container and seemed to be reading the nutritional information, when his face scrunched.
“Oh fuck this,” Fred said, replacing the carton of ice cream on the shelf. He let the freezer door close and leaned against it. “Hey,” he said to Dennis. “Do you want to have dinner with me?”
The restaurant was an overpriced joint that pushed soul food to the hipster flock. Later both would agree the place was awful, but the lousy food and atmosphere did not dampen their evening noticeably. If anything, it provided a point of familiarity—something they could share and laugh about.
Over dinner, Denis learned that Fred was the IT manager for a software outfit on the Northside. He liked lifting at Gold’s Gym, 70s and 80s rock, low budget horror films, science fiction novels, and long drives in the country. He was, “sorta, kinda, maybe,” dating a twink named Eric, but the kid was, “an arrogant little prick, who listens to too much Gaga, and can’t fuck.”
“Kind of harsh,” Denis said.
“I’m being generous,” Fred assured him. “He just lies there and poses and coos like he’s looking at kittens in a pet shop window.”
“Why are you with him?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Fred said, “I’m an idiot. My ex had a hard on for the kid, but Eric wanted me, so…”
“Spite fuck.”
“I’m not usually like that. Really, I know how it sounds. If you knew my ex it would clear things up, like, a lot. What about you?”
“Single.”
And then Denis told Fred about his late partner and the heart condition he’d kept secret, and Fred reached out and put his hand on Denis’s. He squeezed. He stroked the back of the hand with his thumb.
After dinner Denis suggested they continue their conversation over coffee. Fred said, “I’ll make you coffee.”
Three houses separated Fred’s modern single story home from the park. Denis loved the sleek façade and upon stepping inside, he found himself further impressed. With its open floor plan, French Doors, pale blue walls, and shocking white moldings, the house looked as if it belonged on The Cape or on a Long Island beach. Denis expected to smell salt air or find wayward grains of sand caught between the polished oak floorboards.
He followed Fred into the kitchen, where his host opened a glass cabinet door and retrieved coffee mugs. These were set on the counter and he turned his attention toward a high-tech brewing system. He hit a button, turned a knob and told Denis it would take a minute for the machine to warm up. Making an obvious joke about heat, Fred leaned forward and kissed him.
In response, Denis wrapped his arms around the man and pushed in close. He felt warmth pouring through Fred’s shirt and he wanted it against his skin. He moved his hands to the knot of the tie and pulled it away before working his fingers over the buttons of the blue shirt. His lips only left Fred’s for the three seconds it took to pull his own shirt over his head. He dropped it on the floor and then pressed his weight against Fred’s torso, feeling the tickle of hair, the density of flesh. They pushed closer. Chest to chest. Belly to belly. Two edges of a wound needing to heal.
Fred led an awkward dance to the sofa, guiding Denis all but blindly around the dining table and a white leather club chair as their mouths remained pressed together. When Fred pulled his lips away, Denis lunged forward for them but Fred put a hand on his chest. He pushed lightly, and bent and lifted the edge of the coffee table, moving it away from the sofa. Then Fred was on his knees. Denis looked down at the rounded shelf of Fred’s chest, covered in a carpet of brown hair and then into the clear, green eyes. Their eyes remained locked as Denis’s cock disappeared into the beard-framed mouth.
On the sofa, they rubbed and kissed and tasted each other thoroughly before Denis climbed on top of Fred and ground his crotch against the man. Fred locked his legs around Denis’s hips. Through it all, Denis’s thoughts slid and melted like hot wax, but he always came back to the same words: that chest, those hands, those lips.
Fred directed him to the top drawer of the coffee table, where Denis found a bottle of lube and a haphazard pile of condoms. As he unrolled the condom over his cock, his eyes returned to Fred on the sofa. He had crawled onto all fours, ass out, hands gripping the back of the furniture in preparation. And then he was in the man, and Fred eased back on him. Denis gripped the round cheeks and stroked the light fuzz that covered them. He slid his thumbs up Fred’s spine, his fingers appearing pale against the deeply tanned skin. When he reached the thick wings of muscle over Fred’s shoulder blades, he drove his hips forward and found his rhythm.
Eventually they did have coffee. Naked, Denis followed Fred back to the kitchen and they again had to wait for the machine to warm up, but this time they talked and touched one another without reticence. They laughed. When they both held full mugs of coffee Fred led Denis to the French doors that opened onto an expansive deck. The clatter of rain greeted the opening of the panels and Fred stepped outside.
“It’s raining,” Denis said.
“Yeah,” Fred said. He smiled. “I’m weird like that.”
So they leaned on the redwood railing, shielding their coffees from the misting rain with their upper bodies. Fred wrapped his arm around Denis’s waist and pulled him close.
“We’re doing this again, right?” he asked.
“Yes,” Denis said without hesitation.
Then they were kissing, pressing tightly together. Rain ran down their chests and coursed in rivulets around their compressed bellies. Fred backed him to the railing and his mouth went to Denis’s neck.
“Son of a bitch,” Fred muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Denis asked, following the direction of Fred’s gaze.
Blue and white lights flashed against the canopy of trees rising above the neighboring houses. He recognized the color and the pattern of a police unit’s bubble lights. In the road out front, a car squealed to a stop.
“Might be serious,” Denis said.
“Looks like more than one,” Fred said. “Let’s check it out.”
They dressed and walked out front. Two police cruisers and an ambulance lined the curb in front of the house by the park. Other neighbors had wandered onto the walk, forming a tight group near the back of the nearest police car.
“I’m gonna head up and see if anyone knows what’s going on,” Fred said. “Be right back.”
He padded barefoot along the wet sidewalk and sidled up to the group of gawkers. After chatting with a young blonde woman, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest, Fred nodded and hurried back to where Denis waited.
“Looks like the guy killed himself.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s what everybody up there is saying.”
“Shit,” Denis whispered. “Did you know him?”
“Not really. I saw him around. Mowing his lawn. Jogging in the park.”
“Should we go back inside?” Denis asked.
“Yeah,” Fred said. “I don’t think I need to see them wheel a body out.”
Denis left Fred’s house early the next morning. To his right, an official vehicle, the color of pewter, pulled away from the curb. Instead of going directly to his car, Denis walked down the street to get a better look at the scene. He didn’t expect to actually see anything unusual, but he wanted a better look at the house.
Like Fred’s it was modern, with sharp edges and a lot of glass, but this house had a second floor and a balcony that overlooked the park on the west side of the roof. Yellow warning tape was used to make a fence across the front porch and an X, blocking the front door. All of the windows were black with interior gloom, and Denis briefly wondered why the police would leave the blinds and curtains of a crime scene open.
Another curious thing caught his eye. A hedge of thigh-high shrubs ran across the bottom edge of the living room picture window. It was lush and well-tended, its top flat and even, but the bush nearest the front door was blackened as if it had been scorched. Denis thought this odd, but there could have been a hundred different explanations for the discoloration. For all he knew, it had been that way for weeks.
He lifted his gaze from the hedge and his breath caught in his throat.
Someone stood in profile in the living room window. The figure was pale. Motionless.
Denis took a step back.
As if in response, the figure lurched forward and scurried out of sight.
Denis spent the next two nights with Fred. Their time together was marked by a relaxed familiarity as if months and not days had passed, but the intensity of their attraction was all new. Fresh. Overwhelming.
Thursday night, as the sweat cooled on their skin and Fred rested his head in Denis’s lap, Fred said, “Did you see the news about Old Johnny today?”
Jonathan Lucio was the name of the man who’d killed himself in the house down the block. Fred had taken to calling his late neighbor, “Old Johnny.” Denis had skimmed the story at his office over the past couple of days, but found it all too unpleasant to pursue. Apparently Lucio was a lobbyist for a Christian outfit, Soul Safe, that pushed an anti-abortion agenda to state and federal legislators. There had been no word in regard to the manner of his death other than the phrase, “At his own hands.”
“No,” Denis said.
“He had a Facebook page,” Fred said.
“Who doesn’t?”
“Yeah, but that’s where he posted his suicide note.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You don’t know crazy. He put a curse on the world. Said his blood would grease the hinges of the gates of hell.”
“Bullshit.”
“It was something like that, but he definitely used the words ‘gates of hell.’ I caught a screenshot of it before they shut it down.”
“You snagged a screen shot? That’s got sick fascination written all over it.”
“Eh,” Fred said, nuzzling his ear against Denis’s crotch. “A bit of morbid curiosity never hurt anyone. You want to see it?”
“Later.”
They remained in silence for several minutes. Denis ran his palm through Fred’s close-cropped hair, feeling the ridges of the skull beneath the stubble.
Finally Fred spoke. “I’m going to have to have the talk with Eric. We’re going to dinner tomorrow night.”
“So I should make other plans?” Denis asked.
“Only for dinner. I should be home by nine—maybe eight if he storms out of the restaurant, which seems highly probable. I mean it’s up to you. Do you think we need a night off?”
“No.”
“Good.” Fred turned his head and kissed the head of Denis’s cock. He growled deep in his throat and shifted his position. With his tongue, he drew a line through the trail of hair on Denis’s stomach and chest, and then climbed on top of him. “A night off would suck.”
Denis stood in his kitchen, drinking a beer. The microwave moaned its pitying dirge as a plastic tray of meatloaf and mashed potatoes turned circles on a glass carousel. Seven minutes. Power setting: High.
He couldn’t say he enjoyed the evening, back to eating a frozen dinner, waiting for Fred to finish his date with Eric. Jealousy didn’t enter his emotional space, though he kept telling himself it would have been an understandable guest. He didn’t know Fred all that well. Maybe the man would decide he needed more twink in his life and postpone the break up. Maybe he’d never intended to break it off with the guy in the first place. But Denis didn’t really doubt him. Fred had a casual honesty, revealing traits and actions that weren’t always flattering. He didn’t present this information with dramatic build-up or hesitance, as if fearing Denis’s reaction. He stated things simply, the way he’d told Denis about his dinner with Eric.
He ate in front of the television, watching an episode of some droning sitcom he’d seen half a dozen times before. The food tasted bland. The frozen meals always did. At five minutes to nine, he left his apartment and drove across town to Fred’s house.
Several times during the drive, Denis told himself he should have called ahead. He didn’t even know if Fred had made it back from dinner, yet. He felt a moment of relief when he saw the man’s car parked in the driveway, and then a moment of panic when he considered that Fred might not be alone.
“How’d it go?” Denis asked as he walked through Fred’s front door.
“Not well,” Fred said. He kissed Denis and pulled away. “Not the way I expected anyway. You want a beer?”
“Sure. What do you mean not well?”
He listened to the explanation while following Fred into the kitchen.
“I don’t know,” Fred said. “I expected him to be indignant. Figured he’d give me some twink attitude before storming out. But he wanted to talk about it. I mean he actually looked hurt.”
“I can understand that,” Denis said.
“Yeah but we have something… different. I don’t know. I guess I didn’t give the kid enough credit for depth.” Fred stood in the light of the open refrigerator and handed Denis a bottle. “Anyway, I felt really shitty about the whole thing until he called me old and fat, and then I just felt a little shitty about it.”
“You’re not fat.”
Fred looked at him wryly over his own beer bottle. He whipped the refrigerator door closed.
“And you’re not that old,” Denis added.
Fred walked past and slapped him on the ass. “You’re on bottom tonight, buddy. I’ll show you what old and fat can do.”
The tire hissed around the blade of the Boy Scout knife in Eric Morden’s hand. He hadn’t used the knife in a dozen years, and he hadn’t even seen it in two, but as motherfuckers went, this motherfucker was prepared. The tire deflated. The corner of the car sank. He yanked the blade free and snapped it back into the handle.
Eric wasn’t used to getting dumped. He was beautiful; everyone told him so. And yet some middle-aged, chunky-assed douchebag had sent him packing? It didn’t make sense. It defied Eric’s laws of physics, which was to say that a pretty face and tight abs were fucking gravity.
Who the fuck did Fred think he was? (And what kind of geek-ass grandpa name was Fred, anyhow?)
Satisfied with the damage, Eric walked hurriedly back toward the park. As he approached the house on the corner, he noticed a man standing on the edge of the lawn. The guy wore a suit that was black or dark blue and a narrow tie over a white shirt. Eric slowed his pace and considered crossing the street—(Did he see what I did?)—but the man turned away as if he’d seen nothing and walked into the park. There he stopped in the shadows beneath a pine and leaned back against the trunk. Eric could just make out the smudge of paleness that made up the man’s face.
He didn’t notice the house on his right. There was no reason he should. The police tape had been removed and he never followed the news. The house was just a house, but the man ahead, the guy leaning against the tree, might be something he needed—a hard distraction.
The park had a reputation for cruising; that’s probably why fat, old Fred had bought a house so close to it. Eric strolled into the park, fully aware of the man’s eyes on him. He paused to get a better look at the guy. Pale, he thought. Kind of scrawny. Not hideous but nowhere near Eric’s league.
Still there was something to be said for convenience.
He walked up to the man and said, “Hey.”
Without returning the greeting, the man grinned broadly. He reached out and cupped Eric’s crotch. His fingers gripped a bit too tightly, but Eric said nothing.
Then the man released his hold and walked away from the tree. He headed at an angle toward the back of the house on the corner, and Eric followed. He wanted to believe the man owned the house, so close to Fred’s. Somewhere deep down in the spongy darkness of his mind he imagined hitting it off with the guy, visiting the house a few times; maybe sunning himself on the front lawn just to catch Fred’s eye. Make the asshole squirm a little.
On the patio behind the house, the trick fell under a dull cone of light from a fixture beside the door, and Eric thought he looked better than he had in shadows. The suit looked like it was quality, and the gauntness Eric had noted in the gloom of the park was nearly erased by the light.
A plant, maybe it had been a fern, sat on a tall, intricately carved stand beside him. Its fronds and stems were limp and black as pitch.
“You might want to water that,” Eric said and laughed.
The man’s grin grew wider and he shrugged. Nodded his head.
“This your house?” Eric asked.
The man nodded again.
Doesn’t he talk? Was something wrong with his voice? His teeth?
Eric tapped the Boy Scout knife in his pocket for reassurance. He was never comfortable with quick tricks, not until he was done with them. A lot of freaks in the world. The man in the dark suit slid open the back door and stood, grinning like a kid who knew he was getting exactly what he wanted for Christmas. He waved Eric into the house with a flourish of his hand. Eric nodded and stepped over the threshold, took three more steps, and then waited.
The grinning man walked around him, passing out of the reach of the patio light. He continued through the kitchen and crossed into a gloomy area ahead, which Eric assumed was the dining room, or maybe the whole place was wide open like Fred’s had been. He could barely see but he heard the click of the man’s shoes on hardwood floors.
Eric followed. The closer he got to the space the darker it seemed to be, as if it were a bank of sooty fog waiting to engulf him. A hand gripped his ass and he felt the man’s body guide him to the right. And the room continued to darken.
“Hey,” he said. “How about some lights?”
The hand left his backside and Eric felt a dislocation from reality as if he were dropping through this darkness, rather than just standing at its center. Further, the black air seemed to have density. It buffeted against him, and he again thought of fog. The sensations were startling and Eric reached out to steady himself as he felt certain he would topple.
“What the hell?” he asked.
A light clicked on. The grinning man in the suit stood before him, arms outstretched like a magician awaiting approbation for a trick well done.
Eric shook his head in annoyance.
Then he saw the bodies on the floor. Three of them. Each one had been crucified face down, pinned by spikes to the hardwood like butterflies on a kid’s wall. He had no time to react before the man swung out and punched him in the temple. The world spun and swirled, and then his feet were kicked out from under him and he fell hard, his head cracking against the polished wood. Once the initial daze passed, he screamed and thrashed, slapping his palms and his heels on the flooring. The man in the suit landed in a kneel on his chest, knocking the scream from Eric’s lips.
He planted his palms on Eric’s shoulders and leaned forward. His lips parted freeing a thick black liquid like tar. The ichor fell in dark bands over Eric’s nose and mouth and it slipped through his lips. It was bitter and acidic and it began to pour in gouts from the suited man’s mouth. It filled Eric’s nostrils. He held his breath as long as he could, but eventually, he had to open his mouth to breathe. He gasped. The perverse fluid drained into his throat like bitter syrup, and Eric coughed, gagging on the rich filth.
A moment later, he was flipped over and slid around on the floor like a doll. Facedown, he continued struggling, digging his nails into the glistening finish. A shoe came down hard on the back of his neck. He tried to scream but couldn’t. The black shit had grown thick and dense in his throat and his chest was already heaving for breath. The shoe left his neck. He felt a second of relief before the man dropped onto him, knees digging into Eric’s shoulder blades. Hands wrapped around his brow and pulled his head away from the wood. A moment later he was stunned by the concussion of his face on the boards.
Then it was time for the spikes.
They were on the sofa, watching a romantic comedy and drinking beers. Denis leaned against the arm of the couch and Fred curled in front with his head on Denis’s bare chest. “Feeling better about Eric?” Denis asked.
“Feeling better about everything,” Fred told him. “Better than ever.”
“Same,” Denis said. He pointed at the television. “Do you know why rich, smart, and gorgeous American women always fall for bumbling, barely articulate British guys in these movies?”
“It’s the accent. The accent is a snatch magnet.”
Denis slapped the side of Fred’s head.
“Too crude?”
“You think?” Denis said. A second later he was laughing uncontrollably over the comment.
“Tomorrow, I think we should have breakfast at Dewey’s, that pancake place on the other side of the park, and then maybe drive up to the mountains for the day.”
“It’s supposed to rain all day,” Denis said, running his palm over the fur on Fred’s chest.
“I doubt it’s going to close the freeways.”
Denis pinched Fred’s nipple. “Smart ass.”
“It’s nice up there, even with rain. Maybe we could grab a room at one of the resorts, spend the night out of town?”
“Sounds good to me.”
He watched the Englishman’s stuttering profession of love on the screen and shifted his weight a bit. “You mind if I order a pizza?”
“Mmm,” Fred growled. “Fred’s tummy like Denis.”
“And Denis like Fred’s tummy. Now move your ass so I can reach the phone.”
“You’re about perfect, you know that?” Fred asked.
Maxine Gordon stood in front of the house by the park, scratching her head. Early morning light surrounded her in a pinkish haze as she regarded John Lucio’s yard with disgust. The black stain that had devoured his hedges and grass had moved onto her front yard, sweeping like a pointed wave over the lawn. She’d paid too much for soil and sod, not to mention the pricey service to mow and weed every week, to just watch it blacken and die.
It was bad enough Lucio had killed himself, likely dropping property values in the process, but obviously, he’d set something loose before doing so. Every plant on the man’s property was ruined, and now her foliage was under attack as well.
She’d already called the city about the situation, and they’d assured her someone would be out to assess the situation, but knowing the city it would be days before one of their drones got off his fat ass to do something. This was simply unacceptable.
Maxine walked toward the park and noticed the stain had spread in that direction as well. It looked like someone had poured gasoline over the plants and lit them up until they were char, but she’d plucked a blade of her own grass and it hadn’t had the texture of having been burned. If anything, the blade seemed more succulent, fatter, only instead of being filled with variances of green, the plants choked on a darker nutrient.
She walked to the side of Lucio’s house and then around to the back.
Lucio had taken great pains with his garden. He had been particularly fussy about his roses, she remembered, having seen him on numerous occasions pruning branches and testing the soil. They were black now. Everything in his precious garden was, and the discoloration spread to the far back of his property. It was already climbing the trees of the greenbelt separating the neighborhood from Seventh Street.
Maxine turned back for the front of the house and noticed the glass patio door stood open. She shook her head and marched forward. The police had probably left it open after their investigation of Lucio’s suicide. Lazy bastards. The glass wasn’t broken, and as she approached, she saw no sign of tampering along the metal frame, so she discounted the likelihood of thieves—at least sloppy ones.
At the open door, Maxine poked her head in. “Hello?” she called, not expecting an answer.
But a sound did come back to her. Not voices. Not someone calling out an explanation for his or her presence in the home of a suicide. Instead, she heard thumps and raps, like someone locked in a distant closet, attempting to escape.
Maxine walked into the house and immediately saw motion ahead, though the gloom made it difficult to identify the details of the shape. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed 9-1-1. Her thumb hovered over the send icon on her phone’s screen. Cautiously, she made her way across the kitchen.
Ahead, she was startled to see a man lying face down on the floor. At first, she’d thought he was having a seizure. He jerked and spasmed against the hardwood, but just his torso and head. His hands and feet were motionless. Next to him, a woman similarly thrashed. Maxine continued forward until she saw all four of the bodies on the floor of the dining room, each of them in an agitated state. And then she noticed the spikes that secured them to the floor and her skin puckered tightly around muscles suddenly cold.
Remembering the phone she jabbed the send command and put the phone to her ear as she backed away from the horrors in the room.
A shrill squeal like nails on a blackboard erupted from the speaker and Maxine yanked it away from her head. She turned to flee the house and saw with dread John Lucio standing in the opening of the patio door.
Denis woke to an empty bed and his heart skipped.
“Fred?” he muttered. He looked around the room. Found it empty. He repeated the name only louder.
When no answer was forthcoming, he climbed out of bed. He walked through the house calling Fred’s name, but there was no response. Getting concerned, he went to the French doors overlooking the patio and peered out, half expecting to see the man standing naked, drinking his coffee at the railing. But he wasn’t there either.
A little over seven months earlier he’d made a similar circuit around a different house, only the name he’d been calling was “Benjamin.” He’d had no concern back then, just curiosity, wondering where his partner had gotten to so early in the morning.
Eventually, he’d found Benjamin on the floor of the garage. Lips parted. Eyes wide. Motionless.
Only later had Denis learned about his partner’s heart condition. Benjamin’s mother had told him at the funeral home, where they’d met to discuss arrangements.
“Fred?” Denis called, storming away from the patio doors.
The front door opened. Fred lurched inside and threw the door closed. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “The little prick slashed my tire.”
Denis, confused, paused by the sofa. “What?”
“I went out to get the paper. Fucking paperboy drops it at the end of the driveway every god damn day, so I gotta walk to the street to get it. And I see my car. The back tire has been slashed.”
“Are you sure it isn’t just low?”
“No, it’s not just low,” Fred barked. “There’s a gash an inch long.”
“And you think Eric did it?”
Fred shot him a look that said, Duh, and then stomped toward the bedroom. “I have to call Triple-A.”
“And the cops,” Denis said.
“No cops. They wouldn’t do anything about it—probably couldn’t do anything about it. I don’t have any evidence. Besides, the fucker only did it to get a rise out of me. He doesn’t have to know it worked.”
Maxine came to slowly. There was a terrible scent in the air that she couldn’t identify, and a squealing sound, like rats in the walls. The first time she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but a smudge of light, and then she drifted off again, though she didn’t realize it—time simply skipped a beat. She was truly awoken by a louder version of the squealing she’d heard before. Terrified that she shared a room with rats, Maxine opened her eyes.
She sat in a corner of John Lucio’s dining room with her hands tied behind her back. A thick wad of cotton had been shoved into her mouth as a gag. To her horror, she saw that she’d been stripped naked. She trembled from both fear and chill, and every muscle in her body ached as if she’d been pummeled from head to foot. Tears filled her eyes, and she sobbed into the cotton gag.
John Lucio knelt on the floor over one of his victims. With his thumb and index finger he wiggled the spike that held a young man face down on the floor. Then Lucio pulled the nail free. It emerged, accompanied by the familiar squeal. Metal against wood.
Behind him, two of his victims, the man and the woman Maxine had first seen, crawled on the floor, heads turning from side to side as if listening to music. She didn’t recognize these people, didn’t want to recognize them. Something was wrong with their skin. It was dry and gray, flaking from the muscle beneath like ancient parchment. Their lips were black. Their eyes were the color of oatmeal, with tiny black holes at their centers. Bones poked through their arms randomly, whether from compound fracture or unnatural growth Maxine didn’t know. A third broken person crawled into view; its mouth was open, revealing a jagged fence of sharp, shattered teeth.
She screamed into the wad of cotton, catching the attention of Lucio who was removing another spike, releasing the right foot of the boy sprawled only a yard from Maxine. The man in the suit who was supposed to be dead, stood and observed her. He looked so peaceful. Content. He stepped back and wiped dust from the sleeve of his suit. Then he observed the victims in the room and swept his arm toward Maxine.
The victims responded, crawling toward her like eager infants. She tried to move out of the corner, but Lucio was there. He placed his foot against her shoulder and wedged her against the wall. She struggled against it. She didn’t want to die. Not here. Not like this.
The four victims surrounded her. One grabbed her ankle with its destroyed palm. Another leaned close to her chest, sniffing at her skin curiously. It pushed its nose against her breast and she squealed in disgust. When it opened its mouth, Maxine observed the saw-like teeth and shrieked.
It bit, pinching the skin unbearably before it whipped its head back and forth and tore away a piece of her breast. Blood spilled in gouts from the ragged lips of the wound. Maxine lost her breath from the pain. From the sight of a part of her disappearing into the black-lipped mouth. The thing chewed and made a humming sound in its throat as if delighted by the flavor. Turning to the others, the victim nodded his head.
And they all began to eat.
The downpour they’d been expecting started while they were eating a late breakfast at Dewey’s. Before going to the restaurant, they’d dealt with Triple A, and Denis had followed Fred to the dealership, so he could drop off his car and get a new tire to replace the one Eric had destroyed. The dealership couldn’t make any promises, but they might have the new tire on the rim and the rim on the car before noon.
Denis hated to see Fred’s mood sour even more, but he understood, and he remained silent, allowing the man to vent all the way to the restaurant and through most of the meal.
“Now it’s raining,” Fred said.
“Supposed to go on for a few days.”
“Great.” Fred dropped his fork and looked out the window. “I’m sorry. I’m going to be lousy company for a while. If you want to drop me off at home, we can try the mountains next week. I’m feeling a heavy sulk coming on.”
“I don’t mind sulking, but if you want to be alone that’s cool.”
“What I want is to hurt that prick. But I won’t because I’m not twelve-years old and because it’ll just give him the jollies he was after all along.”
They drove back to Fred’s in silence. At the lip of the park, Denis followed the road to the left.
The park was built on a sloped parcel of land, surrounded by dense shrubs and trees. The main lawn sunk into a broad bowl of well-trimmed grass. Roads framed its periphery. Denis drove up the rise on the north side of the park, but when they reached the corner on which John Lucio had built his house, he pulled over and stopped.
“Do you see that?” Fred asked.
“I’m surprised we didn’t see it this morning,” Denis said.
“We didn’t come this way. The dealership is the other direction.”
“Still,” Denis said.
The black stain covered Lucio’s entire property and had drifted well into the park. “It’s all the way back to the greenbelt,” Fred noted. “What is that shit?”
“Maybe we can ask that guy,” Denis said.
He pointed over the steering wheel at a tall man wearing hunter green hip waders and latex gloves. He stood in the middle of Lucio’s lawn, poking the ground with a metal tube. A white van sporting the city’s health department decal sat at the curb.
“Don’t know,” the man, whose name was Steve, said. “Just getting my samples now.”
“Have you seen anything like this before?” Denis asked.
“Can’t say yes,” Steve replied. “Any idea who lives here? No one answered the door.”
“He’s dead,” Denis told the man. “He killed himself earlier in the week.”
“Oh,” Steve said, looking at a plastic bag holding a divot of black lawn. “I’ll have to call it in then. I need documentation before I can enter the house. If I had to guess, I’d say the guy doused everything down with some kind of herbicide before he said goodnight. Maybe he didn’t like his neighbors and he wanted them to know.”
“Are there herbicides that can do this?”
“I suppose,” Steve said with a shrug. “I need to get a few more samples up by the house to see if the concentrations are different. He might have chemicals in the basement leaking all over the place. That’d be real bad. But we’ll get it squared away.”
Back in the car, Denis said, “I think you should stay at my place for a couple of days until they figure this out.”
Fred was looking out the window at the house beside Lucio’s. The stain had reached the halfway point in the yard. “I think you’re right,” he said.
They stopped at Fred’s house so he could gather clothes, toiletries, his phone charger and laptop. With his bag packed Fred walked through the house and checked the locks on all of the doors and windows.
“I’m paranoid like that,” Fred said with a half-hearted smile.
Instead of going directly to Denis’s apartment, they returned to the auto dealership, where Fred picked up his car. At Denis’s apartment Fred excused himself to the balcony to make calls.
He needed to touch base with a friend. When Denis checked on him, Fred was standing at the railing, holding his hand out to catch raindrops on his palm. He laughed into the phone. It was good to see him smiling, Denis thought.
Early afternoon, they lay in the bed listening to the rain. Denis spooned Fred, arm wrapped around the man’s thick chest. Since he was so silent, only light even breaths, Denis thought his boyfriend was sleeping until Fred said.
“Ivan says you’re the gold.”
“You have a friend named Ivan? Do we know any of the same people?”
“Maybe,” Fred replied. “I don’t know.”
“What did he mean gold?”
“I have a theory. See I’m convinced there’s a cosmic scale and for all the gold on one plate there is an equal weight of shit on the other. Eric and his prank fall squarely on the shit side. Whatever is happening to my neighborhood is also weighing things down. But then there’s you.”
“I like your theory, though I can’t say I buy it.”
“You don’t have to. I know it’s nuts. But think about it. We met on Tuesday, not even a week ago, and we haven’t spent a night apart since. I’ve never done that before. Never wanted to.”
“Neither have I.”
“And my being in that grocery store was totally random.”
“I was going to ask you about that.”
“I had a meeting at the coffee shop across the parking lot, and I figured it would be easier to run in there than to look for parking where I normally shop.”
“I’m glad.”
“Yeah, me too. And I’m not saying this other shit wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t met. I had no intention of seeing much more of Eric, so that was already in motion, and I can’t imagine Old Johnny was waiting around for me to bring home a hot trick before he offed himself. But I’m glad we met, to keep things balanced.”
“Well, it’s better than you thinking I jinxed you or cursed you or something.”
“No chance of that,” Fred said. He pushed his ass back into Denis’s crotch and growled deep in his throat.
They lay there quietly. The rain rapped in a soothing rhythm against the window. Denis rubbed his hand over Fred’s stomach. It was a good moment, except Denis couldn’t shake the word, “curse.”
Fred had said something about John Lucio’s suicide note. Something about cursing the world.
The Book of Wives has told me: Tonight the sky will be wrung of light and I will offer my blood at the Gate of Hell. It will grease the hinges, so that as I enter it will throw wide. I sacrifice my Christian soul and curse this sinners’ world. In return I will be given After Life. I will anoint four apostles in the black honey, and they will walk the East, the West, the North and the South, spreading the Word. As the souls of the living pass through the gates, the darkness seeps free. Doubters will know truth.
I will know forever.
“You were right,” Denis said. “That’s pretty crazy.”
“Yeah, right? But check out the left side of the screen.”
“What am I looking for?”
“The guy had two thousand ‘friends.’”
“And nobody thought to check on him? Some friends.”
Fred closed the laptop and leaned back in his chair. “Well, his little show was pretty convincing if you ask me. I mean all of the plants dying after he commits suicide. He put together an intricate hoax, if it is a hoax.”
“What else could it be?” Denis asked.
Fred shrugged. “I just can’t imagine him spraying chemicals all over the neighborhood like that. Someone would have had to see him.”
“So it’s more reasonable to believe a Christian activist sacrificed himself to the devil to damn the world?”
“The question isn’t whether he would or wouldn’t do it. Those whack jobs get some fucked up ideas in their heads. The question is whether it worked or not.”
“No more horror movies for you.”
“Try and stop me,” Fred said. He smiled, leaned forward and gave Denis a kiss. “Just so you know, Ivan has a spare room if you want some time to yourself. I don’t want you to feel trapped.”
“I don’t feel trapped. Besides, the city will probably have figured all of this out by morning and you can go back to your place without worrying about toxic exposure or demon possession.”
The next afternoon the steady rain shower intensified. They had gone to an early movie and afterward decided to check on Fred’s neighborhood. Denis felt a chill as he navigated up the sloped drive of the park. The terrain was painted in shades of gray from the storm. Pellets of rain smeared the air and made the sprawling lawns and picnic gazebos appear unreal, like ancient photographs with badly scratched surfaces. As they neared the far side of the park, they saw the news vans and the city vehicles surrounding the corner lot. A crowd of people stood in the park watching the scene. They too were gray. None of them held an umbrella. This group—easily forty people—stood unprotected from the downpour as they stared at the house by the park. Away from this aggregation on the other side of the road, two aged men in black stood beneath the semiglobes of umbrellas. They had the white collars that identified them as priests. They too were motionless, but instead of looking at the house, their attention was captured by the group of onlookers across the road.
“Street’s blocked,” Denis said, pointing to the barricade ahead. Flashing orange lights seemed to be the only color in an otherwise grayscale landscape.
“Hopefully, they’re cleaning up whatever Lucio put in the ground.”
“Do you want me to head back to Seventh Street and come in from the other direction?”
“Absolutely,” Fred said. “Somebody up there must know what’s going on.”
Denis navigated a three-point turn. His headlights fell over the priests and both men turned toward the car. Their faces were stern, agitated. Their gazes were intense, yet looked weary like pictures of soldiers Denis had seen on the web. One of the men touched the cross hanging from his neck. The other nodded solemnly.
They encountered another roadblock on the opposite end of Fred’s street. Another group of onlookers, as unaware of the weather as the congregation in the park, had gathered just outside the barricade, and police officers shouted for them to get back, but the rain-soaked crowd paid them no attention. Oblivious. They remained a motionless pack, staring past the police and through the downpour at the house by the park.
“We’re not going to get any answers,” Denis said. “I don’t even think we can get anybody’s attention.”
“But that’s my house,” Fred told him. “Shouldn’t I fucking know what’s happening to my house? Maybe we can go around to Seventh Street and walk through the greenbelt.”
“No,” Denis said. The police were getting nowhere with the horde at the barricade. They were clearly beyond frustration and working themselves up for violence. “We don’t need to get shot.”
“But I’m going to need clothes for work.”
“Then we’ll go shopping,” Denis said.
“This is bullshit,” Fred said absently. “Complete bullshit.”
“We’ll check the web when we get home. There are vans around the corner so the reporters must be up there someplace. The police will have to make a statement to them. My guess is, even you had the chance to talk to one face to face, it would be the same story they’re going to tell the press.”
“It’s my house,” Fred said.
“Yeah,” Denis said, slipping an arm around his shoulders.
He didn’t know what else to say.
The news gave them little information. A video clip showed uniformed police officers and men in white hazmat suits poking around Lucio’s black lawn. “Authorities are investigating an event of ecological concern,” the anchorwoman said. “We have no details at this time but it has been speculated that unknown, possibly toxic, chemicals have been spilled in the area. The extent of the damage and threat to human life is unknown. For now, the public is being asked to stay away from the area until more information becomes available. Again, the twelve hundred block of…”
“Fuck,” Fred said. He slapped the sofa cushion with his palm. “I’ve been quarantined out of my own fucking house.”
“Better out than in,” Denis said.
“Don’t look for a bright side here, Denis. I appreciate it, and I love that you’d try, but please, not right now. I sank my life savings into that place. It was my home.”
“It still is.”
“Sure, unless it becomes a toxic waste dump, or is ruined by some other event of ecological concern.”
Denis knew there was nothing he could say that would help. He might mention insurance or spout some platitude about Fred having his health, but he knew the man wouldn’t appreciate any of it. Denis had lost the house he’d shared with Benjamin, and no amount of support or condolence had soothed him.
Once he’d thought his home had actually been his, but Home was a brittle term; one wholly dependent on finance. Only a mortgage promptly paid gave a man a home.
“I am going to lose my mind just sitting here,” Fred said. “Maybe things have cleared out over there.”
“It’s only been an hour. Why don’t we wait and we’ll check again after dinner?”
Fred nodded. “I think I’m going to lie down,” he said. “Would it be okay if you didn’t come in with me?”
“Sure,” Denis told him.
The least he could do was give Fred his privacy. They’d been all but inseparable for days.
So Denis sat on the sofa and watched Fred disappear into the bedroom. Denis turned on the television and let the afternoon pass into evening.
He checked on Fred a little past eight. Easing the door open, he poked his head in and looked at the bed.
“Hey,” Fred said.
“You okay?”
“Better.”
“I thought I’d see if you wanted some dinner; maybe check your place again.”
“Not really hungry,” Fred told him. “And I think we both know nothing’s changed at the house. Let’s not waste the time.”
“Okay,” Denis said. He leaned out of the room and was closing the door when Fred stopped him.
“Where you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then come to bed. I missed you.”
Denis woke to dull gray light. Morning. He went to the window and parted the blinds. The rain continued, but it had become little more than mist. Still the gloom that had covered the city remained. He turned back to the empty bed.
He’d heard Fred slipping out over an hour ago. Instead of saying anything, Denis had closed his eyes and gone back to sleep. But now, he felt a wound of unease open in his chest. He didn’t know how to interpret Fred’s early departure, nor his own apathy in light of his leaving. Obviously, Fred had thought to get an early start, to reach his house before the crazies gathered for another day of rain-drenched gawking. He might even be able to corner a cop or health department worker to learn about the immediate future of his property.
Fred needed time to himself, Denis knew.
He went about his morning, fixing breakfast and powering up his laptop. He discovered an early morning email from Fred and opened it.
Had to check on the house. Didn’t want to wake you. You look amazing when you’re sleeping. Back soon. F.
Denis smiled, and the wound in his chest knitted. He drank his coffee and returned to the news page, where he found a number of articles pertaining to the events of the day before. The story hadn’t changed, as far as he could tell.
An hour passed, and then another.
Finally, Denis decided that Fred had been gone too long. Even if Fred had been allowed to enter the house to gather more of his belongings it shouldn’t have taken this long. Denis called his cell number, but he was sent directly to voice mail.
After another hour and another call, Denis took his umbrella from the closet and left the apartment.
He stood at the barricade looking in disbelief at the street ahead.
He’d driven in from the East to avoid the park, and he’d been forced to park his car in the middle of the road because the curbs were packed tight with vehicles. Cars and trucks blocked drives and alleys. But there were no people. The police cars and health department vehicles remained. Two ambulances with their back doors open wide stood just inside the barricade. Yet the roads and the lawns were empty.
Misting rain shrouded the block. The black stain had reached the west edge of Fred’s house, consuming all greenery on the right side of the street for as far as Denis could see. It was a war zone. A minor apocalypse.
Where the hell was Fred?
Denis walked around the barricade and crossed to the door of Fred’s house. He knocked lightly, so softly it all but negated the action entirely. Finding the door unlocked, Denis went inside.
“Fred,” he whispered.
He listened for movement in the house, but even the hiss of the rain was blocked out. He repeated Fred’s name as he passed through the living room. In the bedroom, he found a suitcase open on the bed and three pairs of slacks laid out beside it. He left the room and walked to the French doors at the back of the house and bit down on a gasp. The black stain covered everything in sight, as if a talented artist had done a charcoal sketch of the landscape. Even the potted plant on Fred’s railing had gone dark.
Denis backed away from the doors. He called Fred’s name a final time, but he knew the place was empty. Abandoned. Fear drove him from the house and back to the bleak yard. An insistent voice told him to leave this neighborhood. Fred was gone, lost to the mystery and no longer attainable. Just get the fuck away from here.
But how could he leave?
Ambivalent about his next move, Denis remained in the yard. He called Fred’s phone again, and for a moment he imagined he heard it ringing, distantly, muffled by walls and rain, but the sound had no clear direction. It came from all sides, which was all Denis needed to convince himself he hadn’t heard the bell at all.
He couldn’t just stand there, but he didn’t know what to do.
He turned to his car beyond the barricade and saw a man and a woman circling the vehicle. Something in their movement, in their faces, made him think of feral animals like jackals eyeing prey. The woman whipped her head in his direction, and Denis felt a splinter of ice run through him. He spun toward the park and raced through the front yards, away from the disconcerting couple. When he reached Lucio’s house he sprinted across the street to be away from it. All of the dread that clung to his skin and burned his veins like acid, rolled from this place.
He looked quickly across the road at the malevolent house, this mother of misery, and saw dozens of people moving about inside. A man pressed himself to the window—a grinning man in a black suit. He raised a palm in greeting and waved wildly as if the host of a magnificent party he couldn’t wait for Denis to join.
Denis bolted, entering the park at the same place he’d seen the somber priests the morning before.
He came over the rise and skidded to a stop on the damp grass. The sight awaiting him punched the breath from his chest.
The stain covered the entirety of the park. Hundreds of people wandered aimlessly over the soiled grounds—on the lanes of road, around stalled and abandoned vehicles, and across the lawns. They moved lethargically through the bushes and trees framing the park. He recognized the familiar uniforms of police officers, paramedics, and the white HAZMAT suits of the city’s health workers. Others wore shorts or jeans or dresses. Some wore nothing. To his right, far across the field, he saw one of the black-clad priests moving in a slow circle, head cocked back, eyes fixed on the steel gray sky.
Denis backed away. He turned to flee the neighborhood.
Fred stood halfway down the block, hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts. He wore no shirt and the rain pasted thick hair to the round muscles on his chest. His skin gleamed from moisture. He was grinning as if pleased to see his boyfriend this last time.
Then Fred began to run forward, his bare feet slapping the wet concrete. He spread his arms wide like wings, like a lover wishing to take Denis in his arms. And Denis stood motionless, desolate, watching Fred bear down on him.
In a flash, jagged scratches of energy filled his head. Rational thought vanished amid the
static and suddenly he found the gray world around him beautiful. Simple. Unfettered by color.
In the flicker of a moment, his fear turned to acceptance. Anticipation.
The burly stranger Denis had loved for less than a week had never appeared more striking. Strong. Vital. Denis opened his own arms in welcome. And when Fred’s lips parted, the grin changing into a cruel smile, Denis told himself the man’s teeth were perfect and white, and not the shattered, sharp fangs of a thing fashioned in hell. The eyes were green and startlingly erotic, not gray clots behind pasty lids.
Hurry, Denis thought, eager to feel the press of Fred’s body against his.
And those hands. And those lips.