"Thor, who else is here in the house? You said that there are children here? Who are they exactly?"
"I don't know. They like me for some reason. They bring me things and are always happy to see me."
"Why?"
"They think I am a good man." Thor loses his smile and once again they are in the desert.
"No, no damn it! Thor, listen to me. You are a good man."
"I killed Ernest."
"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" Loki heard his voice echo out into the miles of endless desert.
"I deserve this."
"No you don't!" Loki yelled again. Blue carpet. Loki turns to see Thor lying on the bed naked and smiling at him. His breath hitched.
"You make me want to forget. You make me want to live." Thor said.
"I wish you would. I wish you could." Loki's tears cannot be contained. He climbs onto the bed next to him and cuddles into his warm bronzed form. Thor's arms wrap around him as Loki nestles his head under Thor's chin. "I don't know a damn thing about you. Not really."
"My mom died of a drug overdose a couple months before I graduated high school. I was already eighteen and the state didn't consider me their problem. I had to couch surf with friends until I got my diploma and then I walked into the recruiter station."
"What about your father?" Loki asked.
"He's an abusive alcoholic and an ex-con. I stayed as far away from him as I could."
"You're an orphan like me. How did you end up here?" Loki asked.
"I could ask you the same. This little town has a certain magnetic pull to it I think." Thor chuckled.
"But really, how did you end up here?"
"A stroke of chance really. After Ernie, I took my money and left the Army. I went to New York City at first, hoping to get lost in the sea of people there. But everything was so expensive and my measly $500,000 couldn't get a decent one bedroom apartment. I rented an apartment in a shady part of town but there was crime and drugs everywhere. I started having waking nightmares and realized that the city was bad for me. I needed quiet, something rural. I found a map of New York state and saw this little town."
"Yeah but why this one over any of the others?"
"Because of my mother. Her name was Maywood too." Thor said.
"Oh. I see." Loki's whole body tensed. "How did you find this house?"
"I don't know. It just called to me, like a beacon. Everyone in town seemed so blind to it. It's easily the largest structure in town and yet no one even knew this place was here. The front door wasn't even locked."
"What did this place look like when you found it?"
"Surprisingly well preserved given the decades of neglect. There was a minor roof leak and the house was not wired for electricity at all. I had to repurpose the gas wall scones for the new electric fixtures. The kitchen had to be updated and the basement was just a bare empty space. I made some inquiries with the county tax assessor regarding property laws and abandoned homes. I sank a bunch of money and hard work into this place and then claimed it as my own. The city board was pissed! They acted a though this house had magically appeared out of some cloaking mist and I was stealing it from them."
"I'll bet they did." Loki said, feeling Thor was far more correct than he realized.
"I loved the upstairs bedrooms and how they were all done in different colors. The blue room is my favorite." Thor said.
"Mine too. My favorite color is green. What's yours?"
"Red, though mostly because I used to have to wear green all the time, except when I was deployed to the desert. Everything there is brown. I do love green though. It reminds me of your eyes."
"What kind of music do you like?" Loki asked.
"Bluegrass and both easy and hard rock. I also really like 80's music. I love the sound of a fiddle and an old timey singer but I don't like modern country music."
"That's an interesting mix. I expected you to either be all heavy metal or the big country hat and boots type."
"What about you?" Thor asked as his fingers fiddled with a button on Loki's shirt. Loki let one of his hands venture south to rub Thor's tummy and eventually other things.
"I don't know about Bluegrass but I do like 80's music and easy rock." Loki pressed a single kiss to Thor's collar bone. Thor got a couple of buttons open and slid his hand inside Loki's shirt to touch bare skin.
"I figured you city types would all like classical music and having sticks up your asses."
"Some of us do. Where are you from anyway?" Loki asked.
"Some tiny town you've never heard of called Potlatch Louisiana."
"Louisiana? You don't have a very thick southern accent."
"I used to but I learned to tone it down after joining the Army. Being as big as I am with my accent, my friends would call me Bubba and asked me if I like shrimp."
"I'm surprised they didn't ask you if you like dick." Loki took hold of Thor's shaft and stroked it. Thor groaned and stuffed his hands down the back of Loki's pants and gave his ass a firm squeeze.
"Couldn't tell them. Had to hide in those days. Ernie knew though." Thor resisted bucking into Loki's hand.
"Was he your lover?" Loki tried to sound nonchalant.
"No. He liked girls and I wasn't into him like that but he was a very close and dear friend. He didn't have any family either. In fact it was the life insurance policy that first brought us together."
"How do you mean?" Loki's hand stopped.
"During Basic Training they issue you everything you need and draft up all this paperwork to make sure you are taken care of in every conceivable way. Life insurance is almost automatic. You simply have to select the amount you want and put down the name of a loved one to receive it if you die. Almost everyone always chooses the maximum amount of $500,000. But Ernie and I just sat there staring at the piece of paper. We didn't have anyone. He was a ward of the state. He grew up in multiple foster homes and I sure as hell was not going to leave my drunken wife-beating father $500,000. We both saw each other and we knew. We shook hands and exchanged names and that was it. We became inseparable after that."
"My parents were murdered a year before I graduated. The killer was never caught. He shoved my parents in front of an oncoming train. They never saw it coming and there weren't any witnesses that could identify him."
"I remember. You got rid of the footage. Why did you do that?"
"I need to forget. I need to move on so I can live my life. Keeping my heart in the past is making me sick. I can't keep doing it. I know now that I will probably never find out who killed them or why and I need to make peace with that, if only to help me keep my sanity." Loki said.
"I wish to do the same." Thor said. "But I don't know how to leave this place."
"Then I will stay with you for as long as I can."
Loki awoke feeling heartbroken. He wiped the tears away as his hands scoured his face. "Maywood. Oh dear god Maywood!" He said. Loki had planned to ask Thor if he or someone else was attacking his guests. He didn't quite get there. Instead he learned something else, which might incidentally be the answer to his question. He knew what he needed to do today.
After dressing he headed upstairs. Jenny was not due to make an appearance for a couple more hours. Loki frowned when he thought of her. Labor Day was over and he had not received any bookings for the coming weekend. Loki did not want to lay off Jenny but without any customers, he was hard pressed to find any meaningful work for her to do. When she came in, he tasked her with sweeping, mopping, and then waxing the entire ballroom floor by herself. It took her the entire shift to complete.
Loki spent his day reading. For hours he scoured the pages of Lord Leslie Maywood's journals hoping to find an entry that might explain why he built this house and/or how he died, but his research did not bear fruit. Rubbing his eyes, Loki closed the tome in defeat.
The evening came and Loki sat alone and watched television until 9 o'clock when he could no longer pretend that he wanted to do anything other than sleep and see Thor again. He lay down and closed his eyes thinking of the questions he wanted to ask him.
Mwanawa sobbed in the darkness. She sat on her knees in the dirt before the mud puddle filled with her dead baby's blood. They'd hacked him up in front of her as though he were nothing more than a chicken bought at market. The six men took off with the remains to take to the witch doctor for their pay. She wondered in her sorrow, how many other mothers had suffered her pain because of the greed of men.
She knew of the item the shaman would make from her child. She had once sought out the man for her own needs. Only now did she understand the full price of his favors. Mwanawa reached into her knapsack and pulled out her knife. It was hefty and long, at least six inches with a jagged section on the top for sawing. She used it for everything.
With her knife she drew a circle in the dirt around her son's blood. She looked up at the night sky to the realm of her ancestors and begged them to help her avenge her child and all the others that have suffered as she had. In her native language she uttered a sacred prayer.
"Let the things they seek be their undoing. Let the pain they inflict upon others come back to them times three. Let the things that bring them pleasure become their greatest torment. Let their evil be their own punishment. From the depths of my soul, I cry out to you! Give me justice!" Mwanawa turned the knife and plunged it into her gut, letting her blood spill into the puddle with her child's. It took her hours to die and she lay like that all night until, with the first rays of rising sun, her last breath left her.