Chapter One:

"Holy shit!"

Startled, Yugi dropped the plate he'd been drying. It shattered on the tiles of the kitchen floor, but he paid no mind, already running to the living room before the shards had finished sliding in all directions. Dropping the dish towel in the hallway as he ran, he darted into the living room.

"Joey, what's wrong?!"

Joey looked up over the back of the couch with a grin. Yugi could just see the top of his laptop on the coffee table in front of him. At what had to be a look of minor panic on Yugi's face, Joey's grin faded.

"What's the matter?"

"Me? You shouted! What happened, are you hurt?"

Joey's gleeful look had completely changed to dismay. "Oh, no, Yug'. I just… saw something… neat."

Yugi let his breath out, his heart beginning to return to a normal rhythm after the short burst of adrenaline brought about by fright. He ran a hand through his hair and put his other hand on his hip. "I dropped a plate! *What* is such huge news?"

Looking embarrassed, Joey pointed to the screen of his laptop. "Um. Erica Lynch is coming to Domino."

Joey had shouted like he'd broken his arm, and all he'd done was read something off the internet? Sometimes he really could be a spaz. Yugi frowned, now a bit annoyed. "Who?"

Joey's apologetic expression was reversing back to his ecstatic expression. Grinning broadly, he settled back against the backrest of the couch, still looking at Yugi over it. "Erica Lynch! The filmmaker."

Yugi gave Joey an impatient stare. "The horror movie films?"

Joey nodded excitedly. He was a huge fan of horror movies, especially a series of ultra-gory films that had been coming out once a year for the last five years. Yugi forgot the series title, because he didn't like them himself. He watched them with Joey to share in something the blonde enjoyed, but every time, he ended up with his face in Joey's shoulder, cringing and nauseous.

"Yeah, her. She's coming to Domino! Look, she's having a casting call downtown this Saturday!" Joey turned back to the computer. "Open auditions. Wow, I'm there. I'm totally going to go down and watch. Maybe I'll get her autograph!"

Joey was immersed in musing out loud about Erica Lynch coming to Domino. Yugi turned and went back into the kitchen, picking up the dish towel on the way. He shook it out, threw it on the counter, then went to the pantry to pull out the broom and dust pan. He set the pan on the floor and started to sweep up the shards of ceramic when Joey's hand grabbed the top of the broom handle and held on. Yugi looked up to see Joey behind him, his face apologetic again.

"Let me get that, it's my fault."

"It's okay. I've got it."

Joey slowly let go of the broom. As he stepped back and leaned against the counter with his arms folded, Yugi swept up the shards of ceramic and put them into the pan. He emptied the pan into the trash and then put pan and broom back into the pantry. When he turned back to the sink and the drainer full of dishes, he smiled at Joey.

"Okay. Tell me about Erica Lynch."

Joey grinned broadly. "She's only the greatest horror director of the time! She's won tons of awards. Her films are real high-tech, win all the Scream Awards every year, and she even got a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards last year. And she's really neat, real weird in the way she does stuff."

"What do you mean?" Yugi asked, grabbing another plate and the towel and going back to drying.

"She never hires anyone that anyone would know. No big name stars, or typical B-horror film stars. She goes to cities and hires people right off the street, after they pass her auditions."

"That's not too unusual, is it? Actors have to get their start somewhere."

"Yeah, but she only uses people one time. After they make their movie, they're never in anything ever again. She says she never uses an actor twice. It's her thing. And it's always a huge success. Her movies are always top rated."

Yugi smiled, drying another plate and a cup. "What's the movie this time?"

Joey shrugged his shoulders. "No one knows. No one's sure if it's going to be another Deathstrike film, or if she's doing something new. There's zero news, it's all real hush-hush. All of her fans are real excited. So, will you come with me?"

"Where? To the thing downtown?"

"Yeah. It's Saturday at two. She'll show up and promote this new movie-"

"A new movie not even made?"

"Not even cast," Joey said with another grin. "Anyway, she'll be promoting it, tell us whether it's a new project or another Deathstrike-"

"How many will that make?"

Joey waved his hand impatiently. "Six. So? They're great! They're not just some stupid chophouse films where the entire movie is people getting their limbs hacked off and their teeth torn out-"

"But they are about that," Yugi said. "It's why I'm hiding in your shoulder after every movie."

Joey flashed a brief suggestive smirk, but went on about the movies. "They are, but that's not all they're about! They have great plot. You just don't know that 'cause the first death has you hiding in my lap, like you said."

"I said your shoulder, not your lap."

"Anyway, she's going to be there, telling us more about her new movie, maybe sign some autographs, maybe even hire some actors for it right there! Will you come with me?"

"Sure."

"Thanks, Yug'!"

Yugi put up the last of the dishes and hung up the towel. As soon as he had done that, he started making more dishes to clean as he set about making dinner. Joey had gone back to the living room to finish reading whatever he'd been reading about the upcoming promotion. Shaking his head at the popular fixation on gory kill-films, Yugi set about making the lasagna and salad dinner he'd been planning. As he was sliding the pre-made lasagna into the oven, he heard the dryer timer go off.

"Joey, laundry!"

As he starting cutting tomatoes for the salad, he heard Joey walk into the laundry room annex off the kitchen. "The movie's supposed to be out in March," he said over the sound of the dryer door opening.

"It's already October."

"Yeah. They film 'em starting right around Halloween, and they're usually out in theaters like five months later. I guess it would go faster without a lot of big-name actor negotiations and schedule arranging and all that stuff, right?"

Yugi moved on to the red onions. "I guess. Doesn't seem like a very good horror movie month, March."

"Everyone does October," Joey said dismissively. "This gives us horror buffs a mid-year horror thrill."

Joey appeared in the doorway of the annex, holding one of his shirts that he was fitting onto a hangar. Hanging it up on the top frame of the door, he grinned around the shirt.

"I can't wait to see her," he said.

Yugi looked pointedly at the calendar thumb-tacked to the wall beside the microwave, waving the knife he'd now been using to slice a cucumber. "Joey, it's only Wednesday."

"I know," Joey complained, a second and third shirt joining the first.

Shaking his head, Yugi scraped the diced tomatoes, red onions, and cucumbers he'd sliced into a bowl. He put plastic wrap over it and the bowl containing the lettuce, and popped both into the refrigerator before glancing at the pot in which a few eggs boiled. Beside it, a second pot held green beans waiting to start heating.

"I wonder if she'd sign my DVD cover of the first Deathstrike?" Joey said musingly as he hung up two pairs of pants.

"Is she nice?"

"I don't know. She seems real happy and friendly in her TV interviews. She's always joking with the announcer."

"Well, take it along and see."

"I wonder if anyone we know will get cast in the movie? Since she'd here in Domino, she'll pick her entire cast from the city. She does that every time; doesn't leave a city until the whole movie is cast from locals, even if it takes a week of promotions."

"That's odd."

"Yeah, I know. I bet a thousand people show up."

"Is she that popular?"

Joey gave him an exasperated look. "As big as Duel Monsters. Especially 'cause of the whole Deathstrike curse."

Yugi frowned, turning the green beans on low heat and then pouring a package of raspberry tea mix into a pitcher and holding the pitcher under the faucet. "What's that?"

"Every Deathstrike movie's had some sort of tragedy attached to it. On set, after filming, something. With the first one, one of the actors committed suicide right after."

"That's horrible." Yugi turned the burner off from under the boiled eggs with his free hand while he set the full pitcher of raspberry tea on the counter with the other. He started to stir it with a long wooden pitcher spoon. "But why is that a curse?"

Joey's expression grew solemn in a way that said he was setting the mood. As Yugi finished stirring the raspberry tea, Joey suddenly pulled open the utility drawer and drew out the flashlight kept inside. With his other hand, he flicked the laundry room-side switch to turn off the kitchen lights, plunging the room into darkness that was broken only by lamp glow from the street at the front of the apartment. The flashlight flicked on and Joey held it under his chin, illuminating his features in the classic, warping manner of a scary storyteller.

"Brandon Taylor, first Deathstrike movie back in 2005, his character got his throat cut halfway into the film. Two days later, his mom found him in his apartment, throat slit ear to ear and the steak knife in his hand. He was sittin' on the couch, the TV was on, and there was a bowl of cold popcorn on the coffee table, like he'd sat down to watch a movie and offed himself halfway through."

"Joey, that's horrible!"

Joey's voice lowered to take on a creepy pitch, like he was actually telling a horror story. "Deathstrike II, 2006, Karen Mackey, the female lead, went missing. Totally disappeared. No one ever saw her leave the set after a night of filming, and she's never been found since."

"Joey…"

"Deathstrike III, the next year, 2007, Yuriko Watanabe, gets strung up by the killer, and while they were filming, she slipped off the scaffolding and actually got hung. Broke her neck, right on camera."

"They took they out, didn't they?" Yugi was starting to feel a bit queasy.

Joey didn't answer. "The fourth Deathstrike, in 2008, one of the set crew, don't remember his name, he got crushed to death when a runaway car jumped the curb and smashed him against the brick wall of a building downtown in St. Louis, in America, where they were filming."

"Isn't that enough? I get the point."

His voice taking on a tone of relish, Joey plowed on. He was walking closer to Yugi, his voice lowering to a very low, threatening pitch. "Deathstrike V, the next year, 2009, Usagi Shimatani, the slutty chick in the film, found out her boyfriend was cheatin' on her while she was filming. She went to his house after the wrap party and murdered him before killing herself. When the police found them, she'd slashed herself with the knife like a hundred times and bled to death, but not before she stabbed him right through his cheatin' heart and cut off his dick besides."

"JOEY!"

The flashlight flicked off. The sudden darkness dazzled Yugi's eyes once more.

"Okay, that's enough, turn the lights back on."

Silence.

"Joey, this isn't funny."

Yugi turned to reach for the second kitchen light switch panel that was on the wall beside the hallway entrance. In the dark, his back turned, he didn't see the movement. Joey grabbed him with a loud, creepy laugh. Yugi screamed, then struggled in Joey's grip with a few muttered curses. Still holding onto him with one arm, Joey flicked the hall-side switch to turn the kitchen lights back on. He was laughing uproariously.

Yugi twisted out of his grip and rounded on him. "That was mean! That stuff isn't funny, it's horrible!"

"Of course it is. But it puts you right in the mood for a horror movie. It is October, ya know. Halloween's right around the corner."

Yugi straightened his twisted shirt. "Did you have to tell me all that stuff right before dinner?"

Joey raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah. Lasagna, with all that sauce that's all thick… and red…"

Yugi huffed in exasperation and disgust and left the kitchen as Joey laughed. Out in the living room, he saw that Joey had left his laptop on, and it was still tuned to the Erica Lynch fansite. The screen didn't go to screen saver until about twenty minutes after he left it idle, because he frequently sat and read horror and fantasy E-books and fan fiction and didn't like to be interrupted with the scrolling graphics.

The header to the website faded from mauve to lilac from bottom to top and across it ran black, Gothic-style letters spelling out Erica Lynch: Queen of Gore. Below that and also center on the screen was the movie poster for the first Deathstrike film, featuring a buxom twenty-something girl in a halter top and jean shorts putting her hands up defensively to ward off whatever was off screen on the left that cast a menacing shadow on the floor before her. Her face held an expression that was the definition of terror. Above the poster, in neon-green letters, read the legend: "The movie that started a phenomenon of horror!"

Yugi sat on the couch and used the mouse to scroll down. Below the picture was a short bio of Erica Lynch, giving her age as fifty-two, her career as containing twenty-four major motion pictures, two short films, and a documentary of a fellow horror director, now deceased. It listed her birthplace as Eerie, Indiana, which seemed appropriate, and degrees in photography, film, and, oddly, biology from two colleges in Indiana. She was the mother of twin adult boys, a stepson, and a stepdaughter. She'd been married four times, and divorced four times. Yugi wondered if that was because of her constant immersion in depravity.

Below, in clickable thumbnails, in a triple row of eight, were the posters to every Lynch horror movie, from all five current Deathstrikes to a lovely trilogy entitled "Gut Ripper" to a stand alone movie featuring a hung man dangling from a dead-looking tree entitled "Town of Death." Beneath the man and to the front right corner was a population sign that had 2,045 crossed off and 2,044 written in what looked like blood beneath it. Yugi studied the picture of Town of Death with distaste, disturbed by how realistic the hanged man looked. His face was swollen and purple, his tongue hanging out of his sagging mouth, his eyes bulging and rolled up towards the back of his head.

"Looks real, don't it?"

Yugi jumped, then whirled to glare at Joey, who was standing behind the couch. Joey held up his hands.

"Hey, I didn't mean it that time!"

"How can you like this stuff?" Yugi asked, gesturing to the picture of Town of Death.

"It's just fiction, Yug'. Fake." Joey rounded the couch and sat down beside him, clicking the next button in the slideshow of posters to reveal "Nails and Hacksaws." It looked like an older film, but featured a woman in a torn and bloody negligee crucified to a wall by nails run through her hands. A hacksaw lay sideways in a pool of blood beneath her left leg, which ended in a ragged stump. The other half of the leg lay at an angle to the saw. "Just entertainment," Joey added casually.

"Entertainment?" Yugi wrinkled his nose at the Hacksaw poster and clicked next automatically to navigate away from the it, only to land on the next in line, the poster for Deathstrike II. On the poster was a very pretty, very young-looking girl with her hair in a brown ponytail and wearing a nightgown, sitting up in bed against the headboard, clutching a pillow to her chest while she stared at the viewer with a look of haunted fear on her face. Her hazel eyes were wide and her mouth hung partially open as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing coming at her from the angle of the viewer. "Is that Karen Macklin?"

"Mackey. Yeah, that's her." Joey tapped the screen lightly with his finger. "She disappeared right after the fifth day of filming. Erica said they didn't even get to finish her part, had to rewrite the film."

Yugi stared at the terrified face of Karen Mackey and felt dread weigh in his chest. He guessed it had to do with looking at the photo of a girl who would, not long after it was taken, disappear without a trace. "That's not entertainment," he said. "That's being morbid."

"Yeah," Joey agreed. He glanced at Yugi, then moved the mouse and clicked the X button, turning off the internet browser. "You're still coming with me, aren't you?"

Yugi sighed and nodded. "I promised."

Joey grinned, shutting off the laptop and flipping the lid closed. "Thanks, Yug'." Another lizard grin spread across his face and he said in the same creepy tone from the kitchen, "You won't regret it. Or will you?"

Yugi shoved him and got to his feet. "Sometimes, Joey, I don't know what I see in you."

Joey laughed, pushing himself upright. "It's these babies." He pushed back his sleeve and flexed his arm, making the biceps bulge.

Yugi laughed and shook his head, returning to the kitchen to finish making dinner. Hanging from the frame of the laundry room annex was a neat row of shirts and pants belonging to both of them, and on the floor beside the wall was the washing basket full of neatly folded bath towels, washcloths, dishcloths, and dishtowels. He smiled and picked up the spoon to stir the green beans that were simmering in another pot.

"Hey, Spiky, you're not mad at me, are you?"

Joey had snuck up on him again, but this time Yugi didn't jump, just standing still as Joey wound his arms around his waist and kissed the top of his head.

"No."

"'Cause I was being a jerk before."

"Yes."

"Hey!"

"You said it, not me."

"Yeah, but you didn't have to agree! Where's the sweet guy I fell in love with, who'd assure me I'm the best guy in the world?"

"Cowering in the corner of my mind after all that, so Mean Yugi took over."

"Aww, man. I hate Mean Yugi. He's mean to me."

"Gee, I wonder why?"

"Will Nice Yugi come back for dessert?" Joey asked with a suggestive, and hopeful, note in his voice.

"Maybe, if you behave during dinner and not gross him out with more stories of people offing themselves over a bowl of popcorn."

Joey laughed, kissed Yugi on the top of the head again, then let him go and went to the cabinets to start setting the table. Yugi turned the burner off from under the green beans, drained them and put them into a bowl, peeled and sliced the boiled eggs, then transferred the beans, the salad and its fixings, and the raspberry tea to the table. By the time the table was set and everything else on it, the lasagna was done. It would cool by the time they finished with the salad, so he put on the oven mitts and transferred it to the pan mats on the center of the table.

"Tristan likes those Deathstrike movies, doesn't he?" Yugi asked as he speared a cucumber in his salad bowl.

Joey looked up in surprise, since it was Yugi who had brought up the topic of horror at the dinner table. "Yeah, he does. I like seeing 'em with you, though. You're more fun to hold."

Yugi rolled his eyes. "Would he like to go with us on Saturday?"

"I dunno, I can ask. Tea, too. Think Yami'll go?"

"He and Kaiba won't be back yet."

"Oh, yeah."

Yugi's other half had been lovers with Seto Kaiba for a year, and Kaiba had taken the former pharaoh to Bermuda for their anniversary, a move that had shocked Joey thoroughly for how romantic it was. They had left the previous Monday, a week before their anniversary, and wouldn't return until next Monday, a week afterward. Yugi had no need of postcards to know that Yami was having a fun time, no less because he was amusing himself trying to talk Kaiba into wearing swim trunks and sandals to the beach. The stuffy brunette, who had actually gone without a single electronic device on which to monitor Kaiba Corp save for an emergency cell phone, was still adamantly wearing his throat-to-ankles wardrobe, even in the middle of the Caribbean sun.

"What's he hiding?" Joey had once asked Yami teasingly when the young billionaire had shown up to a social porch dinner on a terrible scorcher still dressed in head-to-toe black. "Seven toes? Nasty, hairy warts? A tail?"

"Seto's body is quite perfect, actually," Yami had replied, a calculated answer to make Joey recoil.

"Ugh. Come on, Yami, spill. Is it a third nipple? No belly button? He's an alien, isn't he? Robot?"

"Wheeler, if you stop barking right now, I'll balance a treat on your nose," Kaiba had said coldly, having come up on the conversation behind the blonde.

Joey had jumped, but whirled around. What followed had been such a commonplace pissing match between the two that Yugi and Yami had moved away and started a different conversation.

"Yami got Kaiba in sandals yet?" Joey asked, almost following Yugi's train of thought himself.

"No."

"He's got to be hiding a tail or something," Joey said with a grin.

"Maybe he's body shy."

Joey almost inhaled his tomato. "Kaiba? That punk hasn't been shy about anything in his life, and what's he got to be shy about?" At Yugi's raised eyebrows, he looked horrorstruck. "Ugh! I didn't mean it like that!"

"Yes, you did!" Yugi said with delight. "Joey, are you harboring fantasies about Kaiba?"

"No! No way!"

"Is *that* why you were talking in your sleep last night?" Yugi pressed, thoroughly enjoying messing with Joey as payback for earlier. Joey often talked in his sleep, and sometimes he was intelligible and sometimes he wasn't. "I couldn't understand you. Were you asking Kaiba for more?"

Joey gave him a dirty look, balled up his napkin and threw it at him. Yugi caught it, laughing. Joey speared a piece of boiled egg ferociously. Taking it off his fork so hard that the metal shushed against his teeth with the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath, he said, "Hell, no."

Yugi laughed, but eased off. Finished with his salad, he set his bowl aside and served himself some lasagna and green beans. Joey calmed down by the time he'd finished his own salad and tucked into the lasagna with enthusiasm. They lapsed into pleasant chatter about a favorite restaurant they might visit later in the week until dinner was over.

"Mean Yug's been mean to me long enough," Joey said as they were putting away the leftovers and stacking the dirty dishes in the sink. "It's time for Nice Yug' again."

"Have you earned it?" Yugi asked.

Joey rested his hands on Yugi's hips as he leaned against the counter, his own body pressing tightly up against Yugi's. Looking down at him, he smiled. "Nice Yug' can't stay away for long," he said. "Especially when *I* know all his favorite spots."

He darted in and started on the lobe of Yugi's left ear that was always a major erogenous zone. Yugi arched into him, hands on his shoulders, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. He moaned as Joey suckled lightly on his earlobe, his hands squeezing his hips while his own rocked side to side, slowly rubbing against him. His knee pressed forward and he slid his leg between Yugi's thighs.

"Mmm…"

Joey's teeth gently grazed his earlobe, sending a tingle through Yugi. His hands moved from hips to Yugi's butt, cupping and kneading lightly as he pulled Yugi against his thigh. The friction and pressure against his balls made Yugi mewl. He was growing rapidly hard, the air in the kitchen suddenly too stuffy as Joey eased him back again, his body already tingling lightly from the three-pronged attack.

"Joey…"

Joey raised his head and kissed Yugi full on the mouth, tongue flicking against his lips before invading. He pulled Yugi forward again, swallowing his cry. His hands came forward to undo the belt, button, and zipper of his pants, pushing them open a little over his boxer-clad erection. His shirt was half untucked, lips already kiss bruised.

"You know," Joey said abruptly, pulling back with a wicked grin. "Mean Yugi didn't earn nothing. He was mean to me. You know, there's ice cream in the fridge. That's fine for dessert."

Yugi stared at Joey as the blonde walked across the kitchen to the refrigerator, still grinning at him over his shoulder. Glaring, Yugi pushed away from the counter. Joey laughed and ran from the kitchen. Yugi gave chase, having to hold up his pants with one hand. They pounded up the stairs to the bedroom, where Joey turned and caught Yugi as he jumped on him, tumbling in a controlled fall into bed with Yugi on top.

"Okay, okay. If Mean Yug's got to have it-"

"Shut up!" Yugi kissed Joey hungrily, grinding pointedly against the erection he'd known would be there. Joey's moan vibrated against his lips.

The phone ringing made them both jump and their foreheads clacked together. Yugi winced, rolling off of Joey and rubbing his forehead as he reached for the phone.

"Who the hell is calling at this hour?" Joey demanded angrily, rubbing his own forehead. Though it was only eight o'clock, it was far too late for a sales call. "Let me answer it."

Knowing that Joey would answer with a string of obscenities, Yugi picked up the phone and raised it to his ear. "Hello?"

Silence.

"Hello?"

Silence, then a soft shushing sound. Breathing, it sounded like.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

"Who is it, Yug'?"

More breathing. Yugi sat up, frowning.

"Who is this?"

"Give me the phone, Yug'."

There was a click, and a pause, and then the dial tone. Yugi slowly hung up, then stared at the phone. Joey, laying on his side beside him, looked up into his face.

"Who was it?"

"A wrong number, I guess."

"What'd they say?"

"Noth-"

The phone rang again. Yugi picked it up. "Hello?"

More silence. Then breathing.

"Who is this?"

Breathing. Then, a soft, menacing laughter.

The hair on Yugi's nape stood on end. "Is this some idea of a joke?"

"Give me the phone." Joey sat up and jerked it out of his hand and raised it to his ear. "Hel-"

He didn't even finish the word before the caller hung up, judging by his expression. He leaned over Yugi and set it back in the cradle.

"What did they say?"

"Nothing. It was just silence. Well, and they laughed."

"Laughed?"

"Yeah, like… " Yugi did his best to imitate the threatening laughter.

"What the fuck?"

"It must have been a prank. It's weird, though, coming after you told me all those stories about the Deathstrike curse." Suddenly suspicious, Yugi frowned at him. "You aren't playing a prank on me, are you? That wasn't Tristan, was it?"

"No way." Joey held up his hands. "Come on, Yugi, I might mess with you, but I ain't an asshole."

The phone rang again. Furious, Joey nearly flattened Yugi reaching for it. He snatched it up. "Listen, you motherfucker-"

"Joey!"

"If you call here threatenin' my boyfriend again, I'll-" He stopped in mid-sentence, glared, then slammed the phone down. "Hung up again."

"This is weird," Yugi said. All the hair on his arms was standing up, and he rubbed them both to try to get it to lay down again.

"Don't worry about it, Yug'. It's probably some stupid little punk making crank calls. They happen all the time."

"Yeah, but-"

"Just coincidence it happened after the Deathstrike stuff. Besides, even if it was no coincidence, it's just some jackass playing around 'cause there's a horror movie director comin' to town. It was online, so it's no secret."

The phone rang again. Joey uttered another oath and snatched up the handset. "Bastard, you fuckin'… Oh…" Face whitening, Joey said in a strangled, mortified voice, "Hi, Serenity."

Yugi smacked his face into his palm. Never mind that they'd just received a few eerie phone calls, he was asking for it answering like that. Yugi lay down, legs still hanging over the edge, rubbing his face with his hands in agitation while Joey apologized and hemmed and hawed against explaining why he'd answered the phone the way he had. Sighing, Yugi sat up, ducked under the phone cord, and padded into the bathroom for a shower. His arousal had faded completely now.

Undressing, he stepped beneath the warm spray and shampooed his hair. Letting it rinse out, he stared through the misty air at the ceiling, wondering who had called and why.

What did they want?

tbc...