Chapter 19

When a murder occurs in a small town, the panic is always large but subtle. Light glances behind your shoulder and keeping trained on unusual and queer looking people. An example would be myself, I do not retort when anyone says I dress, talk and seem like an eccentric. Many of my qualities mark me as the other, a thing I had come to accept. However, in a time when everyone is as paranoid as a chain-smoking stoner it was easy to become awkward and slightly nervous at the watching eyes of anyone on the streets.

On the afternoon after learning about the murder I was once again at Damian's house, in light of the recent happening Mark was not there to share a beer with Lucas. Lucas himself seemed very much unfazed by the news, but it must have been just natural after living in a big city like Chicago. I assumed that death and tragedy lurked in every corner and dark, cloaked alleyway.

The shadows of the next-door offices seemed more overpowering, oppressing, darkerthan usual as if the sun were morbidly brighter after such a evil discovery. I pondered on how Damien could live under such darkness.

No cars drove by, no one walked, everyone was contained except the brave would walk the streets until the police or any official spoke. If it weren't for the necessity of work I wouldn't have even wondered if groups of townsfolk were to hide themselves in bunkers until the killer had been caught, or stopped. In one afternoon the news had spread to every man, woman and child, as fast as the black plague, and everyone had the same thought 'If it happens again, will it be me? My family? My friends?'

All except Lucas apparently. I yearned to have his big-city attitude, minus the smile and unnerving happiness. It truly shined like a searchlight in such sombre situations.

"Why should I worry?" He had said as we ate dinner, "If they were to attack the office district for whatever reason, he would have to break in, the police aren't that slow. In an isolated place like this were in the shadows, cozy and unnoticed. Even with that we have the great lord favouring us. "His grin stretched wider."I chose this house because it was easy to miss, you walk down the street and think it is but offices, only in daylight do you notice it, and who attacks a house at daylight?" He asked, leaving a silence that seemingly whispered 'it makes sense' over and over as we finished eating in silence.

Even though they had 'The Great Lord', it was still unsafe for me to be wandering dark streets alone and Lucas offered me a ride.

'This surely has gotten everyone scared stiff!'He had exclaimed as we quickly made our way around a few small turnings, only about five minutes from my apartment. I counted five cars as we drove.

'Yeah, it's a small town, as you know there's only about two-thousand or so. One out of two-thousand people is quite the amount. A child... that only makes it worse, doesn't it?'

We slowed for a stop light, the lack of cars meant we probably could have speeded and no one would notice, but that would still have probably been a stupid idea.

He gave a glance over to me. "I can see what you mean, but, you really shouldn't fret." The light turned green, he didn't move. I looked at him confused. His grin, his goddamned, bloody grin. Wide with teeth that shined like a dagger in the night. He looked as mad as any villain from every story I had read. "I don't mean to scare you with this, but… you have a mark… a quality of sin that is so glorious, so magnificent, brilliant, shining, ungodly that neither god, nor satan shall smite you. You have a subtle sin, so, so lovely and subtle." He laughed three short, quiet laughs that he stopped quickly. "But then again, doesn't everyone live with a small sin on their backs? On their lips… on their mind"

The rest of the drive was silent and quiet, awkward and with an air of fear. I couldn't decide if Lucas Thorne was insane or devoted. Or were they both the same thing? If there was one thing that happened in that final stretch of drive to my apartment, it was that whatever tolerance I had learnt for Lucas was as dead as the town's night air was silent.

When we arrived outside my apartment I speedily left his car, brought his door to a sudden close and sprinted my way to the inside. By the time I was at my floor I was huffing and near grasping for air but I did not care. I had found myself tired for once, spent and fed up, the talk with Lucas had taken something out of me and I needed rest badly. The closing of my wooden door sounded like a shotgun blast next to my ear, and brought a splitting headache.

I fell asleep that night, it was inevitable, I had absentmindedly wandered into my bedroom, nearly forgetting to lock the door, and landed on my bed. It had been two days since I got any real sleep for longer than a few minutes. Within seconds I had drifted into my own mind.

The nightmare was an unusual one, the type of terror-dream in which you don't see or hear or even feel the thing that causes nocturnal shivers. It was both dark and light, the world was both black and white and deep, crimson red and an ominous, tainted blue that stood on top and next to each other but didn't conjoin to create a vile purple repulsive offspring.

The splash of conflicting colours and blurred memories of years gone past seem more confusing than terrifying in retrospect but in the moment, they were more dreadful than facing a monster of legend in the face.

When I woke up it was not with a frightened scream of complete terror but a silent gasp as my eyes burst open to a dark, cream coloured room with my heart poundeing at my chest, my hair and body were soaked in sweat and my clothes stuck to my body as if it had been a boiling summer afternoon.

I breathed heavily for a minute or two, just staring at the ceiling and thinking about nothing. By the lack of light from my window I assumed that I had slept for maybe three to four hours, not a tremendous rest but one that was better than most.

Groggily I got up and removed the uncomfortable, sticking clothing. I felt dirty and grimy as if I had taken a dip in swamp water. Gas bills be damned, I went to have a very long hot shower to keep my mind off the previous night and day.

I was refreshed and clean but my mind found itself wandering to Lucas's statement 'a quality of sin that's so ungodlythat not even God or Satan shall smite you' was how I remembered it. Lucas must have misjudged me, I didn't consider myself sinless but I prided myself on my gentlemanliness, did that want to be such a person count as a form of lust or greed. 'Or he's playing you on,' I thought. I gave a brief chuckle to the air, that had to be it, nothing but a little silly ploy. Nothing to worry about. He may be not entirely sane, who wasn't, but he was probably nowhere near mad.

Day dawned quickly over the mountains and the streets were near silent, but some people braved the outside. The fresh air had become Cyanide and the snow was nitrogen to most.

I felt safe though to walk to school, Eric's mother was notoriously overbearing and coddling, in such a time she would definitely be giving her 'sweetums' a lift to school. And Trent…Trent had always been unpredictable, random and a near opposite of Eric, Trent was random and unthinking, the only thing they had in common was that they acted on impulse, only that Eric gave a brief think on his actions before he acted. Nether repressed them fully though.

A few cars drove quickly passed and a few people looked at me oddly, as I quickly slipped by them.

Ms Averon was not in school for the day, apparently she had only heard the rumours yesterday and was revealed the bad news a few hours after school. The fast news of the town obviously wasn't so fast to reach her.

Kenneth wasn't in, Kyle or Stan knew why. His sister, he assumed, he was virtually her parent and in recent news he would be guarding her like a falcon would for their eggs. Stan even guessed that he may have locked both of themselves in "his little whore hole" as he called it. I guessed he would have even spent the day just aiming that gun of his at the door, if such an act wouldn't have scared his sister.

"We're going to check on him after school," said Kyle "we've seen him bad, back when he still had that immortality… thing, he was always on edge. This is not going to be good for him, seeing as you've gotten quite chummy with him would you mind coming with?"

"Sure, why not, I never have plans." Damien said. "He's been a pretty cool guy so, yeah, why not, I guess I owe him one."

"He helped you through some shit didn't he?" Asked Stan, who was sitting directly next to Kyle, they were definitely closer than Siamese Twins.

"Yeah, you could say that." Damien said, obviously avoiding the topic.

Suddenly, Stan looked at him intently. "You know, I don't think I'll ever get used to that."

"To what?" Damien asked, uncomfortable under Stan's gaze.

"Your eyes. They're fucking weird." Kyle gave him a slight slap around the shoulder. "What! It's true."

Damien waved him off "It's fine, I've heard that a hundred times, I know it's weird. I have had to live with them."

Stan asked, "how do you deal with it?" And leaned forward to get a better look at the blood like orbs, Damien shuffled a little further back his chair bumping into mine. Kyle just looked at Stan as if he had just committed genocide.

"I have to live with it, that's how I deal with it."

Kyle grabbed Stan by the hem of his shirt and tugged him backwards, much to Damien's relief.

Stan, embarrassed and cherry red, muttered, "Right, sorry," and moved a bit back from Damien. "I'm just curious, you know?'

Damien gave a short laugh that was more like an inhale, "if I had a nickel for every time someone said that."

"How many would you have?" Asked Kyle.

Damien paused for a second, "... one, maybe two nickels," he said, nearly as embarrassed as Stan.

If Kenneth were there I would have expected him to remark with, "wow! You could buy the whole city," or at least something along those lines.

"After school right?" I said, trying to change the subject.

Kyle played along, "yeah, after school."

A second ticked in silence, another went, but was quickly interrupted by the bell obnoxiously renting the air and declaring the end of launch and that it was time to trudge to tutor, and then fifth period.

I was oddly care free for the remainder of the School day, I have no idea why but I was, maybe it was because if I went to Kenneth's with nothing but dark thoughts then I would find myself panicking until we reached his doorstep, some hour away. That changed though, when I was just a corridor away from the exit, a shaky hand grabbed me by the shoulder.

It was Tweek, looking as nervous as he always had, but something was off, he frowned slightly, worried.

"H-hay, u-uh P-Pip?"

"Yes?"

"Um… in, uh, last lesson, C-Craig uh, saw that T-Trent was, uh, smiling a-at you, l-like,r-r-really, uh… e-evil was h-how h-he put it."

"Why'd Craig tell you to tell me?"

Tweek fell silent, his brows scrunched and he was just as confused. "N-no idea, I kn-know h-he hates Trent mo-more th-than you. T-that and I guess he thought th-that you deserved t-to know."

I gave him a small smile, hiding my dread that I had missed that for a whole hour. "Thanks, I… I guess I'm in debt to the both of you, thanks."

Tweek shuddered impulsively and ran his thumb in a circle in the palm of his other hand. "I-it's n-nothing, just… ju-just be c-careful."

I gave him a nod, "ok, will do," and left out the building, keeping my eyes behind in case Trent appeared once more. Both his and Eric's rejuvenation to hurting me seemed worse than ever. The watching eyes appeared once more.