Page 22

By the time we made it back to the house, all the police cars had cleared out and the scene had been sanitized. The construction crew had all gone as well. Someone even washed the gore off the side of my truck, so Alex wouldn't have to see it again.

You’re an angel, Rob.

I walked Alex into the house and locked the door behind us. I put my hands on his shoulders and gently started massaging the muscles with my thumbs. “How about I make us some tea? Would you like that?”

Alex shook his head. “I think I j-just w-want t-to lie d-down.”

“Baby, you haven’t eaten anything. I’ve hardly seen you drink much, either.”

“M-maybe c-c-cra- crackers.”

I frowned and carefully turned him around to face me. “How about I heat you up a can of soup, and I’ll bring it up to you. You need something in your stomach.”

He looked up at me blankly for a moment, and then nodded.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and get all snug into bed. I’ll bring up the soup, and after you eat, I’ll give you a massage.”

Alex looked up at me and squinted his eyes.

“Just a massage, I promise! Are you okay to get upstairs by yourself, or do you need me to walk you up?”

He slowly shook his head and I kissed his cheek before he turned out of my arms and headed up the stairs, holding tight to the banister as he took each step one-by-one.

“My poor baby,”

I whispered as he disappeared from view. “You’re gonna get some good rest tonight, my love.”

I walked into the kitchen and opened up the pantry. There were two cans of Campbell's soup on the shelf, one tomato and one chicken noodle. I grabbed the latter. Chicken soup was what you gave people who weren’t feeling their best. It nourished the body like medicine. It took opening three other cabinet doors before I found a small cooking pot. I turned the knob on the stove and after a few click-click-clicks the flame ignited and I opened the can.

I hummed absently to myself as I heated the soup, my mind racing. I let it get just hot enough to steam a bit, but not so hot that it boiled… I didn’t want him burning his mouth. With Alex’s tummy as upset as it had been all day, I was nervous to give him too many chunks, so I poured most of the broth from the pan into a bowl, allowing just a few of the noodles to fall in as well.

The alarm peeped as I opened the front door and hurried down the walk to my truck. I grabbed the small leather zipper pocket that held the owner's manual and pulled out the small fold of wax paper I’d slid between the pages.

Once back inside, I carefully unrolled the crushed-up sedative and tapped the edges of the paper until half the powder had fallen into the broth.

It wasn’t that I was unremorseful about drugging Alex. My motives, however, were benevolent. As ever, I thought only of his needs. I had to make sure Alex was going to sleep through the night. Not only was the poor boy completely exhausted to the point of sickness, but I didn’t want him to wake up and be alone if he had nightmares.

I just had to make sure I was back before the sedative wore off. He’d wake up foggy-brained and dizzy. He wouldn’t remember anything, and I didn’t want him to be alone.

When I opened Alex’s bedroom door, he looked over at me from the bed and gave me a small, tired smile. He sat up in bed and I handed him the bowl. “Careful, it’s hot. I know your stomach has been upset all night, so it’s mainly broth. Just need to get some nutrients in your system. Don’t want you getting dehydrated; you’ve been through enough.”

Alex pinned the spoon to the side of the bowl with his finger and brought the rim up to his full, pink lips. He drank down about half the broth and then handed me back the bowl, which I placed next to him on the nightstand.

I climbed up next to him and ran my fingers through his hair, and down the back of his neck in long slow strokes, massaging his temples. Just as expected, his eyes began to droop. I wrapped my arm around him. “Why don’t you lie back, baby? Just relax… I’ve got you.”

Alex leaned to the side and mumbled something incoherent.

“That’s it, sweetheart,”

I murmured encouragingly. “Just close your eyes and sleep. Everything will be better in the morning.”

Not two minutes later, Alex’s body went completely limp. I cradled his head in my hand as I laid him down on the pillow. His mouth was slack, and his lips were slightly parted. I leaned over and kissed him, “I love you, Alex. Everything I do is for you. You may never know that, but it’s true.”

I took Alex’s keys and locked the front door behind me. It was early afternoon and traffic was light, so I made it to my house in about 15 minutes. I pulled into the garage and hit the controller to close the door behind me.

I flipped the light switch, grabbed the two empty gas cans sitting in the corner, and tossed them into the back of the car. I hurried into my private hideaway and grabbed the box with the gas mask and the fire jacket I had ordered months ago to accentuate my fireman motif, and my last three syringes of anesthetic.

I slid the syringes down into the side pocket of my cargo pants and took a deep breath. Looking around the cramped room, I smiled as a thousand pictures of Alex gazed back at me from every angle. My raison d'être. The only good thing in this miserable world.

“Oh, my beautiful boy…”

I hooked the mask and jacket under my arm and took a few steps closer to the wall. I reached out and brushed my fingers across an old Polaroid of Alex sitting at a bus stop. It had been summertime, and he’d cut his hair short. He was reading a tattered novel he’d picked up for a buck at a rummage sale the day before. He was wearing a slim-fitting long sleeved shirt, and jeans with tears in the knees. He was 17.

“We’re gonna make it through this,”

I promised his younger self. “I just have to take care of a few things, and I’m gonna take you away from all of this. I’m going to kiss every iota of sadness out of your body.”

I moved around the room, scanning the walls and pausing here and there to admire my favorites.

The snap of Alex at his high school graduation caught my attention. It was a fuzzy shot, and had three other people’s faces in it, but it was the best I was able to get from the day. No one else had shown up to watch Alex walk and receive his diploma. Tom hadn’t even bothered. It had been really windy that afternoon, and that graduation cap struggled to stay on his head atop all those messy curls poking out all over.

Then there was a picture of Alex walking back home from work, wearing his McDonald's uniform. It had been raining, and the poor boy was soaked to the bone. Despite being caught in the terrible weather, he still wore a small grin across his lips. It was like the cruelties of the word were just some big inside joke that only Alex was privy to.

“There’s no one like you on the planet, baby boy.”

Just as I knew it would, spending a few moments with my gallery of Alex’s pictures had calmed me down and reinvigorated me for what was to come. I sighed and turned to leave, but suddenly froze in place. I felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water all over me. My heart started pounding in my ears as I blinked, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

“What? How did he…”

No.

NO.

Lying in the center of the table was a pink dog collar with splotches of red blood across the band and a scuffed-up silver tag that read Roxy.

“That was Tom!”

I screamed, heedless of the noise. “Tom killed the dog. I was with Alex all night! I was there, curled up around him! I wouldn’t do that! Never! I was with Alex all fucking night.”

Were you?

The voice in my head left the sentence hanging deliberately. I sucked a ragged breath, feeling like I was paralyzed. Every plan I had made. Every move I needed to put in place. It had all flown out of my head. I was stuck in the moment, alone with my evil thoughts.

It’s time to go, the voice insisted.

“No!”

I collapsed to my knees as I began to sob. I buried my face in my hands and wailed as jagged flashes of coaxing the dog out of the neighbor's backyard danced across my fractured memory.

“I didn’t mean to do that. I can’t do this anymore.”

We did what had to be done to protect Alex. It’s time to finish the job. Now, Gabe. Right now.

***

It was a one-hour drive from my house to the Camdens. I’d left Alex nearly 45 minutes ago, and my anxiety grew with every second I was away from him. I was going to head straight for Tom’s and get in there and get his girlfriend under control. Once he bonded out, he’d come home to her and I’d overpower him when he came through the door.

He’s going to go straight to Alex, not the pregnant beard, my head whispered.

“Fuck!”

I cut across two lanes of traffic and held my middle finger up as some asshole honked their horn. No one was coming, so I ran the red and continued barrelling towards Westing House as thoughts of Tom sneaking into the house while Alex was passed out consumed me.

What will Tom do to Alex while he’s asleep? You drugged him, and now he can’t defend himself!

I pushed down harder on the gas pedal and the engine roared as the needle on the dash passed 80.

He’s probably already there, running his disgusting mouth all over Alex’s skin! He’ll take him away! He’ll take him away from you…

My tires squealed as I slammed on my brakes and then swerved to avoid a slow-moving sedan to catch the light. Six more blocks…

“I’m coming, Alex!”

I tilted my head to the side and wiped the sweat pooling on my brow onto the sleeve of my jacket.

My tires slid to a stop, throwing chunks of dirt and gravel into the air as I sped over the front lawn and slammed to a stop just before the bumper collided with the stoop.

I jumped out of the car, grunted as my shoulder collided with the locked front door. I mumbled a curse under my breath, pulled Alex’s keys out of my pocket, and unlocked the bolt. Walking into the foyer, everything was quiet, so I bolted up the staircase two-by-two and flung Alex’s bedroom door open.

I sighed in relief and said a silent thank you to the heavens as the sight of Alex’s sleeping body filled my vision.

“Oh my god, I was so worried.”

I took a slow seat at the edge of the bed and peeled one of my leather gloves off to brush my fingers through his hair.

“I’m gonna make everything better for us, sweetheart. You’ll see. I just have to finish up a few more things and then we’re off on our Happily Ever After.”

I leaned over and kissed his slack lips, grateful the sedative was doing its job and giving him some good rest.

I ran my hand down the side of his face, brushed my fingertips across the prickly stubble on his chin, and frowned. “Oh, no!”

Alex liked to keep his face clean-shaven. He liked to keep most of himself clean-shaven, but especially his face. He didn’t like having even the shadow of a whisker on his face. Probably some kind of sensory dysregulation. He’d been so distraught these last two days, and waking up stubbly would upset him even more. I couldn’t have that. Not when we were so close to purging his demons for good. I got up from the bed and walked out of the room, returning a moment later with Alex’s razor, a can of shaving gel, and a warm, damp towel.

“I’ll take care of that for you, baby,”

I told his limp body. “Don’t want you to be uncomfortable and itchy when you wake up.”

I brushed the damp towel across his chin and down along his jawline, where tiny hairs had started to sprout. “You know, if you really wanted, we could see about getting you laser hair removal. I personally don’t care whether you’re hairy or not; you’re beautiful no matter what. But if it would make you happier, and more comfortable, we can look into it. I’ve heard that it hurts, though.”

It felt good talking to him like this, with him unable to respond. It reminded me, in a nostalgic way, of all the days I’d spent gazing at him and having long, private conversations between us in my head. Before I made him mine for real. Having Alex warm my bed was glorious. A gift from the god that I no longer believed in. But a very tiny part of me liked to reminisce about the years I had spent sustaining myself with the romance in my head, imagining kisses and inside jokes.

I pressed my finger down on the nozzle and a small dollop of shaving cream pooled into my palm before expanding to fill my hand. I carefully distributed the cream across Alex’s chin and up over the lower part of his cheeks. I used my finger to smear some across his top lip, careful not to get any in his slack mouth.

I started at his side-burns and carefully brought the blade down against his skin, moving with the growth pattern to avoid bumps. It took two passes down his cheeks, and then it was on to the stubble along his jawline. I moved the razor slowly along the right side of his jaw, following the trail with a peppering of kisses on the soft, soapy skin left in its wake.

“Oh, Alex. You have no idea the things that I would do for you. I would move this entire earth around if you wanted it.”

I leaned over and kissed his lips again, not bothering to wipe the little bit of shaving cream that transferred from his skin to mine upon contact.

I carefully turned his head to the side and fluffed up his pillow before repeating the same process. I made slow and steady strokes down the sides of his neck with the blade, easily clearing away the light stubble.

Alex wasn't very hairy. He had barely any hair on his arms or legs, or anywhere on his body, really. I think every hair follicle on his body lost their map when he was being created and they all just gathered on top of his head. The boy had more hair on his head than anyone else I’d ever seen. He should be a model doing shampoo commercials.

I, on the other hand, was covered from head to toe (literally) in thick black fur, an inheritance of my ethnic heritage. Alex seemed to be really attracted to my body. Anytime he saw me without a shirt on, he licked his lips. He was constantly running his hands across my hairy chest and abs. It could be the rock-hard muscles, I guess, but something told me he got off on the whole bear thing.

Did that make him a cub? Or is that just a smaller hairy guy? Then there was something about an otter… I don’t know. Some aspects of gay culture mystified me, and this was one such area. As long as Alex kept looking at me the way he did, however, I didn’t care what other people called us.

I cleared the hairs on his chin and then the sides of his goatee. There really wasn’t much in that area except peach fuzz, but I wanted to do my due diligence before I tilted his chin back down. Being this close to his mouth, I couldn't help but kiss him again, sipping the moist warmth of his slow, even breathing from the chalice of his lips.

I brought the razor down on his mustache. His head tipped back an inch and I slipped, nicking the very top of the arch in his Cupid’s bow.

“Oh, no!”

My breath hitched as a small drop of blood welled up, spilled past the cut skin, and began to pool in his philtrum.

Without even thinking about it, I stuck my tongue out and licked across his top lip to clean him up. I moaned as the taste of copper and salt exploded on my taste buds, overwhelming my senses. I pulled his lip into my mouth and suckled it, coaxing out more blood through the small cut.

I pulled back, brought the blade to my mouth and cut my own top lip to line up with the still-bleeding cut on Alex. Once some of the blood had covered my lips, I leaned over and kissed him, rubbing my torn skin against his and smearing our shared gore between us. His mouth tastes like pennies and dreams, elemental and exquisite.

“Yeah, baby…”

I whispered. “Don’t you see? My blood is your blood.”

I licked into his mouth, ran my bloody tongue along the edge of his, and whispered into his lips. “We’re connected on a biological level. Your cells swim inside my body, and mine inside of yours. Don’t you understand?”

I reached down between my legs and adjusted my cock. It was rock-hard and painful, jammed up against my thigh in my briefs. The contact with my hand made me shudder.

Having just dipped down for another long, slow exploration of Alex’s bloody tongue, I nearly bit it off at the harsh interruption of someone banging on the front door.

“Goddammit! We’re having alone time,”

I growled as I grabbed the towel and swiped angrily at my mouth, smearing the peach-colored terry cloth with crimson.

Bang-Bang-Bang

“Alex!”

That was, unmistakably, Mike’s voice.

I closed Alex’s door as I headed down to see what the fuck Lover Boy could possibly want at this hour. He really was starting to get on my nerves.

As soon as I opened the door, he came flying past me into the foyer. “Where’s Alex?”

“What the fuck are you doing? And lower your voice. Alex is asleep. In case you hadn’t heard, it's been a rough day.”

Mike looked over at me and scowled. “I know everything, you sick motherfucker! You’re not a firefighter, you’re a fucking imposter.”

My blood ran cold.

“Excuse me?”

I managed.

“Alex!”

Mike called again, ignoring me completely and heading through the room towards the staircase.

NO! No, no, no, nonononononono…

I pulled a switchblade out of my pocket and hurried after him, flicking the blade open. Just as he rounded the corner and laid his hand on the banister, I came around the other side and buried the blade at an angle, deep into the meat of his shoulder. He groaned and jerked away, but I pulled the blade out and slammed it down into the middle of his back. The knife wasn’t very long, nor was it as sharp as I would have preferred, had I woken up that morning and knew I’d be killing a man that day. I resigned myself to just making do.

Mike hollered and fell to his knees on the staircase before pulling himself up and knocking me off balance with his shoulder. He pulled himself to his feet and made it three more steps before I gained on him enough to drive the knife into his back again, this time with my full body weight atop it. He collapsed on the staircase and stared back at me over his shoulder. Blood was trickling out of the side of his mouth.

“Who the f-f-fuck are you?”

I smiled, still tasting Alex on my tongue.

“Gabriel Vasquez, Emberford Fire Department.”

We were halfway to the second floor. I grabbed fistfuls of Mike’s clothing and flung him backwards down the stairs. He hollered and rolled twice as his body thumped on each step before hitting the floor, blood trailing over the risers in his wake.

Mike gagged and spit a bunch of blood out of his mouth as I made my way down the last few remaining stairs. The blood was everywhere, pooling under his body as he lay in a heap.

“I d-don’t understand,”

he choked out.

“That’s fine; I don’t expect you to. I know it's difficult to hear, but you’re not a main character in Alex's story.”

I leaned over, grabbed a fistful of his short hair to tip his head back, and then dug the switchblade into the side of his neck. He gargled and spit for another 10 seconds or so as his hands clawed at his throat and his legs twitched out to his sides, and then his body stopped moving.

“I knew it was gonna come to this sooner or later, Lover Boy. I appreciated your little crush on Alex, but when it was time to accept that you’d clearly been beaten… you just couldn’t bow out gracefully.”

I sighed and looked around the room. There was blood everywhere. This had not been in my plans.

“And the problem is,”

I groaned aloud, “people are actually going to come looking for this one. Rob especially.”

Hysterical alarm suffused my thinking. All I could see was the blood. All over the stairs, all over the floor. Mike’s big body, which needed to be dealt with. And Alex was asleep upstairs!

I might have been stupid with overstimulation and dumb animal panic, but the voice in my head was calm. Resolute.

Burn the house down. Burn Mike’s body to a crisp and get Alex out of there. They’ll think Tom burned it down as revenge…

I hurried outside and grabbed the gas mask and the two cans of gasoline from the back of the car. Once I was back inside, I went into the kitchen and doused the kitchen table in gas, along with the outer edges of the room and the drapes. I walked through the kitchen into Alex’s office and emptied the rest of the first can across his desk and the floor.

My eyes began to burn from the fumes and being in the enclosed space, so I pulled the mask on over my head.

I walked down the hallway and into the living room, leaving a thin trail of gasoline behind me. It splattered the refinished floors. I soaked the fussy antique furniture and the moth-eaten curtains and saved a little to cover Mike with. I’d start the fire in the center of the house and then take Alex down the back stairs, I reasoned. The thick walls would contain the fire long enough for me to get him out with plenty of time to spare.

I grabbed the Zippo out of my back pocket and tossed it into the kitchen. I turned away as a massive ball of flames erupted throughout the room, and I ran down the hallway. The blast immediately tripped the alarm, and high-pitched wails from the detectors began to ring out all through the house.

Shit. Fuck. Shitfuckshitfuck. I didn’t have enough time.

I grabbed Mike’s arms and lifted him up enough to pull my knife out of his neck. Just then, I heard a thump overhead. I looked up to see Alex staring down at me. He had a terrified look on his face and grabbed at the broken banister for support.

“Oh baby, no! You're supposed to be asleep!”

I let go of Mike’s arms and let his body crash against the hardwood as I stepped over him. Alex used the carpet to try and pull himself down the hallway. I tried to imagine what I looked like to him, drugged as he was. A nightmare of a killer in a gas mark, flames rising behind him like a vision ripped straight from hell.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re scared, but you aren’t going to remember any of this. I promise.”

Once I got to the top of the steps, Alex flipped himself over, staring up at me. He trembled and scooted himself backwards against the carpet. His eyes were huge, his mouth moving in silent entreaty.

“It’s okay, my love. It’s just a bad dream. You’re just having one of your nightmares,”

I assured him.

He shook his head. I pulled one of the syringes out of my pocket and got down on my knee next to him. He began to sob, and thick tears streamed down his cheeks as I wrapped an arm around his chest.

“It’s okay, my love,”

I repeated. “It's all just a bad dream.”

I pushed half the liquid out into the air, being overly-cautious to not administer too much. At this dose, it would be nothing more than the light anesthesia you’d get for a dental procedure.

I held Alex down as he began to squirm around. “It’s okay, baby boy… I’ve got you,”

I told him tenderly as I grabbed his chin and tilted his head back. He let out a choked sob as the needle pierced his skin, and within 15 seconds of administering the medication, he fell slack in my arms. I tossed the syringe aside and scooped Alex up and tossed him over my shoulder.

I ran into his room and grabbed his backpack and his phone. I frantically stuffed a few tops and a pair of jeans into the bag, along with his phone. I hurried down the hallway and snagged his toothbrush off the sink before flying down the back staircase as thick, billowing black smoke began to envelop the second floor.

The fire may have started in the center of the house, but as I came around the side from the back door, the flames were starting to flicker in the front windows. It would only be a matter of minutes before the alarm company dispatched the fire department. Whether you could see the flames or not, I needed to not be here when the fire department showed up. As far as I was concerned, we spent last night at my house. Alex wouldn’t remember either way.

I flung the back door open and trotted to the car. I carefully laid Alex down across the backseat and jumped in the front. I tossed his bag into the passenger’s seat and tore out of the driveway.

There’s no going back now.

My heart was racing painfully from adrenaline, and from the physical workout of having just carted Alex around the whole house. My hands shook on the steering wheel, and my vision was starry at the edges. I was convinced that, at any second, I would see the flashing lights in my rearview that let me know the authorities had finally caught up with me. Terror, base and overwhelming, gripped my spine. But there was something else, too. Exhilaration.

This is it. We did it. We’re going to be free. Together.

Forever.