Summer Sons

by Lee Mandelo

  “If you don’t put those in the wash before you leave, I am going to smother you in your sleep,” Riley shouted to him.

  No response needed. With shaking hands, he carried the bundle to the basement, tossed it in the machine, and escaped to the privacy of his car. Andrew was left alone in his head, Sam gone and Riley occupied. Partial thoughts and images chased themselves across his mind’s eye—fighting with West, the list of interviewees to run through, the presence of Troth at the corners of all the spooky shit, the knowledge that Eddie was gone for good, the sour taste in his mouth from failing to brush his teeth after swallowing another man’s come. The fact that he was continuing on—that he was changing, as the night before proved, growing past the static moment in time the revenant would always be trapped inside. The phase shifts were all overwhelming, impossible to encompass.

  For a moment Andrew considered letting Riley chase down the academic angles on his own while he took a breather to let last night and everything else settle. But shame pricked him the instant he had the thought; if the act itself hadn’t been a betrayal of Eddie, putting his purpose aside to wallow in it, selfish and indulgent, might be. Without direction, he set off for a drive. First stop, a Starbucks drive-through; second stop, lunch. His car was one of two in the Chinese restaurant’s parking lot at 11:13 A.M. on a weekday. The “open” sign lit above the door read N W S RVING. Dead vowels lay dormant. He stabbed his plastic fork into the carton of take-out lo mein braced between his knees and hung his free arm out the window. Checking his phone revealed that Sam had texted him one time: Called Irene and she said no harm no foul but not to hit her up again for awhile lol as if that supremely awkward lol had the ability to defuse the real tension.

  Fair enough, Andrew thought, stuffing a last bite of noodles in his mouth before tossing the container out in the parking lot. Oily sweetness lodged in his throat. He snagged his iced coffee for a bracing gulp. He had no one to tell about what he’d done—aside from the remainder of Eddie, which seemed like the worst idea. Aching to talk to a person, he sent a text to his mother with a brief message: All his estate stuff is finished, I have the old house now and am settling in. You need anything? She answered him as he drove; he snuck a read with the phone held in front of the steering wheel.

  No thanks, hon, be safe.

  Before the cavern, he’d been close with his parents. After, he’d been close with Eddie. The patterns set between them during Andrew’s adolescence—distance, dismissal, without even the conflict of rebellion—held strong. He felt right at home with the cousins and their estranged families; his barely knew him. As he shifted in the seat, his belt dug into the blade of his hip, recalling with a burst of sensation the restraining heel of Sam’s hand. Decisions he had made and would make again given the opportunity looped under the surface. Putting aside what it meant, desire had come as natural as breathing once he’d gotten Sam’s body on his—as if the last decade of his life had been secretly leading to that moment, and when the time came to choose, he had no trouble letting go.

  Riley’s car was gone when he returned to Capitol. Andrew bounded up the stairs without a pause at the landing, promising himself he’d move the bedding to the dryer later. Eddie’s room, stale sheets and old laundry funk, stood unchanged as he stepped inside. Dust coated the secondary monitor and gaming headphones hanging from their stand. The stillness of Eddie’s paused life decomposed with each passing week, eaten away as the reality settled in. No one was coming home. The basket of clothes would remain unwashed, the guitar silent, the beer cans moldering. That immensity was the force that drove dogs to waste to death on their masters’ graves. Whether he believed it was smart or not, he eased his pressure on the thing within himself, allowing the eldritch inheritance to bleed into the dead air.

  If he was careful, then he’d be fine. But he needed to see something of Eddie.

  He sat, and the mattress dipped behind him with phantom weight as the bell-toll of his power filled out the form of his ghost. The revenant settled spine to spine with him, stiff against the subtle movement of his breath while the sun loomed high outside. He could feel it inviting him to give more, the weeping edges of its outline chewing at the little taste of being he was feeding it clumsily, his barriers trembling against the urge to let go. Only one set of ribs lifted and fell; there was no bridging the gap across time, unless he let loose the way he had in the forest or standing over the trunk of the Challenger. An impression of indefinite fingers sieved through his onto the rucked sheets. Ghastly cold settled brittle in his joints. Breath misted in front of his face. As he considered confessing his indiscretion to the remnant, the haunt vanished with an abrupt pop, reminiscent of adjusting eardrums on an airplane.

  The fingers of his left hand had gone white with a tinge of blue. He tucked them under his leg to warm and wiped his damp face on his shirt. Once he regained the feeling in his hand, he picked up the ring from the desk, playing it along his palm. Eddie might fade from the world, but he had a handful of things left to hold close. Platinum meant forever; he wasn’t sure if he intended his gesture as an apology to the friend he’d loved or a reminder of his responsibility to him. The band slid snug onto his left ring finger, as if made to match the hand Eddie had held on the dorm balcony years before, when he’d been marked a second time.

  The moment the platinum met the base of his finger it throbbed a spike of brutal, eldritch strength straight through the bones of his hand; his tenuous control shattered in an instant. The oceanic drag of that power rolled him under from the inside out. He fumbled at the ring but couldn’t remove it as blackness ate at the corners of his vision. He staggered to his feet, concentration fractured as his blood throbbed with an answering grave-hungry desire.

  Floorboards smacked his knees, the mattress soft under his cheek. Eddie’s remnant scraped inside his skull, at once inescapable and immaterial, not as gone as he’d thought. He’d called it out of loneliness, and he was paying the price under the crush of its starvation, its jealousy, its anger. Andrew toppled to the side, a rag doll, confused to see his arm lift without his consent. His fingers hung limp, but his wrist straightened. Ring and tattoo both seethed with the absence of color, as if the specter had wrapped itself around them. His heartbeat skipped and stuttered with painful jolts—then hung at a standstill.

  He clenched his fist, or tried to. His fingers remained motionless, arm hanging sore at an inhuman angle. His chest cavity seized, spasming. Looped, distorted sound chewing inside his ears cleared into a toneless repetition of comehomeI’llbewaiting. Consciousness fluttered in tatters. With an effort born of fervent terror, he fought loose of the revenant’s grip long enough to slam the back of his head against the floor. Color burst in a halo across his vision, pushing at the dark; his arm dropped to his chest. Free for a moment, he heaved a gasp. His pulse kicked sluggishly for three uneven squeezes, then double-timed into a frantic sprint. Blood burned in his veins, coursing with unleashed potential at full tilt. He shoved the gush of energetic power into the ground beneath the house and the land past that, ripples like sonar pinging him with impressions of all the bodies of dead things, human and otherwise, scattered for miles around.

  That explosive push redirected the river-rushing flow, and he visualized clenching a fist tight inside him, tighter, boxing shut what remained of the seething mass. The buzz faded, haunt dissolving with a shredded hiss into the afternoon sun once again. He rolled over and crawled to the bathroom to run the tap for the tub as hot as he thought safe, wrestling out of his jeans to climb in, still wearing briefs, T-shirt and socks. He spat a filthy litany of curses as he waited for his muscles to unlock in the broiling water. When the shivering stopped, he said to the dead space, “Are you trying to kill me?”

  Nothing answered.

  27

  Hello Andrew,

  Have you been successful in your attempt to access the monograph you mentioned? I’ve been unable to locate a copy with colleagues. Additionally, how is your write-up coming alon
g? I’m eager to read the full transcription of the interview.

  —Jane

  Hello Andrew,

  Thom informed me during our morning meeting that he’s resigned from mentoring you after a disagreement over Edward’s research materials. I was unaware of your recent absences. Please reach out as soon as possible to discuss your situation. If you need to withdraw and defer, I’ll assist with the process; we’ll continue with the research regardless, if you’re willing.

  Please allow me to help you.

  Best,

  Jane

  The third and final email in his inbox from Dr. Troth, time-stamped to 11:45 P.M. from the prior night, was short and simple:

  Hello Andrew,

  I’m growing concerned, as I haven’t heard from you. Are you all right?

  —Jane

  Sam finished reading and said, “So y’all think something’s off about her?”

  “Yeah, but him dying fucked her over too,” Andrew said.

  Sam leaned on the arm of the couch and Andrew sat square in the middle. Rain pattered on the roof. Tested patiences weighted the air in the room like damp humidity. The distraction of Sam in thin sweatpants and a white undershirt, tired from his afternoon at the garage but clean-smelling from a quick shower, dragged at animal parts of Andrew that had lain smothered for months, or years. Bleak longing of another sort bided its time, his loitering shade casting its pall over their shoulders. The lump on the back of his head reminded him of its constant threat. With each successive slip-up his control grew weaker and less efficient; at this point a menacing chill clung to his bones whether he fought loose of the phantom’s influence or not.

  “What about your lost lead?” Sam asked.

  “West didn’t do it, he wasn’t even in the state. But Troth was using him and Eddie both, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to kill him. Eddie disappearing just threw a wrench in her plagiarism plans,” he said.

  “Now she’s getting pushier because she thinks you’re going to give up before she gets hers,” Sam said.

  Andrew sighed. “Yeah, so there has to be someone else. One of those other interviews, or just—something we’re totally missing.”

  Sam hummed his understanding. He wormed his foot behind Andrew’s calf. Andrew swallowed and cast a glance to the side. Sam drew one knee onto the couch, letting his legs fall open with his thumb on his waistband. The sweatpants clung to an enticing bulge, and he allowed himself to notice. Andrew’s eyes tracked up from that imprint, across the wrinkles of Sam’s shirt and the pebbled bumps of his nipples to the divot of his throat, then at last met his welcoming stare. Caught and catching in turn. Thunder rolled overhead. The close call from the day before, his corpse-puppet hand hanging in the air, flashed through him like lightning. His jaw clenched around the impulse to warn Sam about the haunt, the risk he’d taken laying his hands on Andrew, the risk he’d be taking again if that really was what had kicked off the last, nastiest altercation—

  “C’mere,” Sam said, cutting through his turmoil.

  Andrew went, wordless. He ended up crouched over Sam in an ungainly hover, sneakers wedged between the couch arm and the cushion. Sam spread his thighs open to brace across Andrew’s, corded-taut hamstrings exerting a sturdy pressure above his knees. His outside heel hooked over Andrew’s calf while his other leg stayed pressed to the couch cushions. Andrew planted a hand on the seatback to support himself.

  “I’m bigger than you, dumbass, just get in here.” Sam tugged Andrew close by his shirt collar, mashing their bodies together. The kiss landed off-center, noses bumping. Front teeth clacked. Sam grunted and moved Andrew’s head with a hand on his jaw, licking into his mouth. Andrew twitched with surprised, blazing pleasure. Such simple touches threw him. Sam said, muffled against his lips but undeniably eager, “Yeah, there we go.”

  The house creaked with the storm. Andrew rocked in an unsteady rhythm, teased with friction but unsatisfied, fed with biting kisses. His hands gripped the couch while Sam’s nails dug stinging furrows into the gaps of his rib cage. Pain and desire sparked to a warm burn in the cold hollow of his belly, the cave of loss his revenant had dug out for itself filling instead with life. Sam’s hands dropped to his ass for an aggressive groping squeeze at the fat of his cheeks, fingertips pressing at the crease. The shocked flash of heat that bolted through Andrew in response had him choking on a whine. Forget spending the night talking in circles around Troth and the research, getting nowhere, he wanted—

  A white flash cracked outside the big windows of the living room. The lamp on the table cut out, plunging the room into a darkness that radiated menace. Andrew froze. Sam paused as well, panting in the quiet against his slack mouth. The band around his ring finger radiated a bitter cold he hadn’t noticed until it contrasted with the fever Sam stoked in him.

  “Andrew,” Sam breathed.

  Static crackled from the surround-sound system. Sam gripped his waist spasmodically. The porchlight stayed dead. He held his breath. The hissing from the speakers hooked into his ears with the faintest hint of consonance, and a solid spike of pain drove into his head. He reared to a sitting position while static filled the room from end to end. A speaker popped. Sam grabbed his rising left hand and smacked him across the face with the other, as if attempting to wake him from the living nightmare unfolding around them. Andrew yelped, high and afraid.

  The front door slammed open, rebounding from the wall it impacted, and the punishing shriek of the speakers cut short. A lamp flicked on to cast its welcoming glow. Riley stood soaked and furious in the doorframe with a bag dangling from his wrist. He bounded across the room, wrenched Andrew’s hand from Sam’s, and pulled the ring off, only to drop it immediately as if it burned. With a mundane clack, the band fell to the floor. Sam took Riley’s hand and turned his palm to the light. A blister marked where he’d touched the platinum. Andrew’s finger was hale and whole, unmarred.

  “Where in god’s name did you get that thing,” Riley said, staring at the innocuous ring on the floor. “Can you not tell something is wrong with it? Like, seriously, extremely wrong with it?”

  “It was Eddie’s,” Andrew said.

  “Of course it was,” Sam said.

  He struggled out from under Andrew’s unresisting form, kicking him in the thigh during his escape. As he leapt off of the couch, away from Andrew, he stepped with careful precision over the ring lying between their bodies.

  Riley said, “Get me a towel or something.”

  Sam disappeared into the kitchen. Riley’s clothes clung to him, water dripping from his flattened hair. The rich brown of his roots made a dual-color line in the dye. He held a hand out for the rag Sam passed him a moment later. The remaining tingles of fear and desire faded in the face of Riley’s intrusion and Sam’s—disappointment, maybe anger, Andrew wasn’t sure.

  “Let me handle it,” Andrew said as he swung his legs off the sofa.

  “Nah, that’s cool, man,” Riley said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “Frankly, I don’t think it should be in the same room as you. Seriously, you can’t tell?”

  “Just get rid of it,” Sam said.

  With great reluctance, Riley crouched and scooped the ring onto the rag, which he knotted into a pouch. Sam plucked it from him like a bag of dog shit. He left the room again and a kitchen drawer shut with a forceful wood-on-wood collision. The storm of his displeasure outdid the rain lashing the windows. Andrew shook his head and massaged his temples, a creeping ache settling into the sockets of his eyes.

  “Don’t play games with him, Andrew,” Riley whispered so low as to be almost inaudible.

  Before Andrew could respond, Sam called from the kitchen, “What are you doing here so early, cousin of mine?”

  The fridge slammed. Riley glanced at Andrew and responded in a raised voice, “I finally got my hands on a copy of that monograph, but Andrew wasn’t home when I got back to show it to him and neither of y’all answered my texts. So, I figured he was probably out here wi
th you.”

  The kitchen light cast Sam in a dull yellow halo, beer in hand and barefoot, as he stopped on the threshold between rooms to regard the tail-tucked pair standing across from him. Andrew recalled their earlier fight in abrupt, scorching detail. He didn’t know if Sam had spoken with Riley or not in the interim—if he’d told him to stop looking, after Andrew hadn’t said a word.

  “You should be glad I interrupted,” Riley grumbled.

  “I got that ring straight from Jane Troth,” Andrew said.

  “Table the spooky shit for a second.” Sam cut him off with deceptive calm. “I thought we talked, boys. I thought we each had a clear and cogent discussion about risk management. So how’d you go and end up being the person who found that book, Riley?”

  “Sam, do we need to do this right now?” Riley said, agitated.

  “Yeah, I think we do,” Sam replied.

  Riley said, “I called around to a ton of used bookstores and libraries, nothing fancy, nothing dangerous. Calm your bullshit.” His hand flapped in the direction of the front door, where his bag lay abandoned. Rain wetted the porch up to the storm door, splattering on the glass. “But I did skim through it in the store, and—”

  “Fuck you is it bullshit.” Sam pointed a finger at his cousin from around the neck of his bottle. “The last guy we know who read that book is dead, and we don’t know who the fuck killed him, so I’d appreciate some more caution on your part.”

  The room tilted on its axis as Andrew put one careful foot behind him after another until he bumped against the couch, taking a seat. Sam and Riley continued their bitter stare-down without noticing his wilting to the side.

  Riley argued back, “I’m the only one who could have found this book, not that either of you were trying. While I was tracking it down, you idiots were warming up for a really, very, extremely bad hookup because neither of you had a clue that ring is, like, cursed. Please don’t talk at me about dangerous when I’m taking care of the boring shit neither of you want to handle.”