Disgusting. Another string of nightmares about bodies. It's always bodies. Poor Ethan hasn't had a decent nights sleep in months. Every time he closes his eyes he's swarmed with images of these people being sewn together. A bloody mesh of flesh hacked up and patched up. It's not build a bear. It's build a nightmare.
He's stopped watching the prank show with Doug Falcon Hawk. He stays in his room with Sarah comes over to babysit his little sister. He's been ignoring the constant video requests from Benny. The only person he lets near him anymore is Rory who comes every night at two AM to sit with him in silence for an hour.
Rory's been different too. Despite being undead the blonde haired blue eyed bimbo went to the DMV the day he was supposed to turn eighteen and got his ID updated. Even managed to get a drivers license. Rory's body might not have grown but his mind has. He's more sullen now. More serious. Maturity makes him desire the quiet life.
Tonight is different. Tonight, as Ethan sits on the edge of his bed next to the windowsill they both are illuminated in the moonlight and Ethan decides to speak, "It's easier to sleep in the daylight. I get one to two hours before they come back."
"I miss sleeping." Says Rory, "But I'll bet you feel much more disturbed needing to and it being taken from you."
So much wiser than he used to be. So much kinder and aware of others.
"Benny misses you." Rory whispers almost hoping it goes unheard.
Ethan shrugs, "I think Benny's interests in me have fallen under the category of inappropriate."
"You have a vampire sitting on your windowsill. Your whole life is inappropriate." Rory stretches his legs.
It's late summer. The beginning of autumn. Shorts are still in season and therefore all of Rory's leg muscles are out for Ethan to stare at. Sure Ethan likes girls. Sure he's been gawking after Sarah for some time now. However, in his later teen years, the idea of sexuality for him has become something more. He longs for touch. For connection. Rory's skin looks... appetizing.
Rory notices. He sees those warm brown eyes beneath that helmet of warm brown hair staring at him. He sees the puslation in Ethan's chest through the thin baggy tank top Ethan's wearing. He sees the blood flowing. Rory's become a lot more aware of his friends and their constantly changing, living bodies. It excites him.
He whispers, "Can I come in?"
"Will you stay till morning?" Asks Ethan.
Rory smiles, "If i'm in your bed I'll stay as long as you like."
"Yes." Says Ethan and then he stands to remove the tanktop exposing his soft, hairless, and muscly chest.
Rory's quick to press their bodies together, his own graphic T tossed on the carpeted floor beside them. His pukka shell necklace is pressing into Ethan's neck. Rory can smell the blood here. His mouth opens and his wet tongue falls out to smear saliva all over the are he's chosen and then he starts to kiss his collar bone trailing tiny smooches down his shoulders and then they press their lips together.
It's heavy and wet. It's inticing. Soon their beneath the sheets and while usually two boys would be lightning and thunder these two are steady like the rain and take their time. No point in rushing a sexual experience if you're not planning on sleeping.
The sheets become their world. The sweat becomes their oxygen. The sex becomes their religion.
Tess looks over at Nia while she sketches. The last of the cleaning is done when Nia wipes down the window of their shared dorm. She'd been working for hours to manage a mess Tess is convinced wasn't even there.
When she tosses the damp paper towel into the trash she places her hands on her hips and looks down at her best friend. Tess is smiling up at her gently.
"What?" Nia laughs.
A shrug, "Nothing."
And Tess continues lining up the lip line on her portrait. It's a stunning depiction. It captures Nia's drive. How a still image could do that baffles Nia but Tess hasn't stopped drawing since they got to the Fine Arts Institution of White Chapel Ontario. What she hasn't shown Nia is all the gruesome images she can't get out of her head.
Around two AM the most disturbing pieces come from Tess's pencils and they don't leave her alone until she's completed the nightly sketch. It's tiresome and has forced her into an awfully lonely mindset but she wouldn't dare tell Nia. Just like she wouldn't dare tell Nia that she was in love with her.
"Are you still thinking about what that frat guy said?" Asked Tess as she turns to show the finished product.
Nia looks at herself on paper and her eyebrows fly up, "Wow Tess. That's so close to me I can almost hear her speaking."
There's silence as Tess waits for a response to her actual question.
"Yes. I think we should go." Nia says, "A party by the lake would be fun. Even if it is scary. It's almost Halloween, the harvest is right around the corner, you've seemed awfully sad since we got here. We need some fun. Maybe we'll get to play with some boys."
Tess forces a laugh, "Yeah... maybe."
Then Nia's grabbing a towel and a change of clothes. She says something about being back later before slipping out of the dorm to go to the girls shower room down the hall leaving Tess alone with the urge to illustrate the dark and twisty images that wont leave her alone. Tess sets down the portrait and slides open her nightstand drawer to pull out the most recent one.
The face of a beautiful blonde girl she does not recognize frozen in death as the bodies of other people are sewn to her sides. Tess is convinced she's dead. The wounds inflicted upon her, the way she's so still, how there's no sign of blood flowing through the veins. This is death. Yet, even Tess has to admit, that here in the eyes of this girl is something more. Something... scarier than death.
The sun is here. Rory hates that. He's not sleeping but mentally he's in a deep meditative state. The sun is here and now someone is pounding on Ethan's bedroom door. He hates that even more. He wants to exist in the darkness with Ethan. It's the only thing remotely human he's felt in some time. To be with Ethan is how it felt to sleep after a long day where he didn't get to nap when he was a kid or how it felt to ride something at the fair that forced him upside down and while he was absolutely frightened at first the feeling of knowing he was secure gave him the freedom to let it all go.
He groans as he pulls the covers up over his head. It doesn't help.
Ethan rolls over and reaches down to pick up his black and blue boxers off the floor. He slips his legs into the holes and stands to pull them up over his hips and turns to see Rory staring at his bulbous ass from the ocean of blankets. They both smile and then jolt as another rapting comes from the door. Whoever it is they're angry.
Ethan sighs as he pulls on a button up he has hanging on a hook on the front of his closet door. It's brighter than his skin and makes him appear much darker than he is. His eyes are all sunk in and his hair is matted from pillow head. Still, despite being a misshapen extra in a Jim Henson film, he opens the door.
"You look like shit." Says Benny.
Ethan shrugs and leaves the door open to walk over to his computer on his desk where he sits down and powers it one. He has no intention of engaging in any sort of conversation but he's not one to cause conflict. It's easier to let Benny say what he has to say and ignore him.
"It smells like death in here." Blurts Benny with no hesitation and no remorse.
Rory pulls himself up closer to the head board of the bed to reveal himself from the blankets and pulls his knees to his chest. Both he and Ethan appear sad and broken. However, only he's still naked.
"What the Hell is this?" Asks Benny.
Ethan turns to look over his shoulder and roles his eyes because Benny knows who Rory is and Ethan doesn't have time for stupid questions. He returns to his monitor where he's studying surgical techniques. There's a flash of an image across the screen as he scrolls of a homemade tourniquet clipped from a scene in the movie 'The Shallows' starring Blake Lively and his stomach lurches.
"Seriously, Ethan. You'll let Rory stay the night with you but you won't even return my calls." Benny's brow curls into a furious frown. He and Ethan resemble each other well but Benny has always been taller and had a wider jaw than Ethan. Always considered himself the more intimidating one.
Ethan would disagree, "Do you want to fuck me, Benny? Is that it?"
He's turned around in his chair now looking up at the boy who's towering over him just as mad when he continues to say, "We used to feel comfortable telling each other everything. I'd tell you what's been going on but ever since that last football game of the season, before school let out for summer, you went to say something to me and didn't. You'd been acting weird around me and now your jealous about Rory. So tell me..." He stands and crosses his arms with a cock in his brow, "Is it because you want to paint these walls white, Benny."
Benny waves his hand and the window flies open letting in more sunlight causing Rory to pull back under the covers. He then gestures to the door causing it to slam shut. With nothing but a simple point he forces Ethan to retake his seat. A calmness falls over him as he crouches down between Ethan's legs and gets really close to his cousin's face.
He whispers, "I was trying to figure out that the warlocks have been contacting me to join their coven. I don't know much about this fantasy of yours where my head bobs up and down between your thighs or you kissing me like we're in an empty freak show tent in the middle of the night but I've been told my abilities are nearly equated to that of the current reigning supreme down in New Orleans. I didn't know how to tell you because you've seemed so distraught after the accident and I wanted to figure out what to do on my own."
"So, what have you decided?" Asks Ethan loudly.
Benny disapperates and reappears at the door. He turns his head slightly, not enough to look at Ethan but enough to carry his voice. He says, "I haven't. There's a party tonight at the lake. Some important people are going to be there. I'd like for you to go with me but if you insist on swimming in this darkness then be my guest."
With that he leaves and Ethan's sitting there confused. Rory's underwear and shorts float up in the air and smack him in the face before falling into his lap. He rolls his eyes and looks at the shut door on his left.
Rory asks, "What party?"
"Deta Phi throws a Halloween party every year the day before Halloween. They got in trouble last year so they couldn't host it at their house. My guess is they found a new location to host this party." Ethan returns to his monitor and exits out of the tab he's on before switching off his computer.
"Thank you Dean Harper. Yes, I understand. Okay, bye now." Raven Baxter hangs up the phone and stares at it as she stands in the window of her apartment overlooking her garden on the ledge.
Chelsea finishes folding a blanket and throws it over the back of the couch, "What was that, Ray?"
"Nia and Tess's school is on a curfew. Apparently the police found a body out by the lake this morning. Poor boy was cut up and stitched back together." She's got a gruff look on her face as she walks over typing something into her search engine.
She holds out her phone for Chelsea to see the images uploaded on the webpage this morning, "Braylock Bay murderer returns."
A disfigured face is blurred out to protect the mans identity until the family decides they want the information released to the press. The images shown are not like that of a Mr. Potato head as Chelsea had originally thought but more over like an exhibit you'd find in an oddities museum. Arms coming out of the stomach, ears sticking out from the neck, and even a leg sewn into his pelvis.
Raven shuts off the phone and an eerie feeling washes over her. Her eyes flash up to the movement from the hallway where her son is seen coming out of his room.
"Booker, where are you going right now?" She asks.
He smiles up at her from his phone, "To pick up Levi. I wanted to take him to see 'The Sound of Freedom', it's their last week in the theater."
"Booker, there's something I want to ask you." His mother looks worried and so he listens to what she has to say.