by Todd Young
Angel stared fixedly at the street ahead, though he failed to see anything clearly. “But how do they …? How do the families of all the victims explain …?”
“You heard of missing persons?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there’s a lot of missing persons. And there’s a lot of other persons, like that guy there, who don’t officially exist.”
They crossed over Meserole Avenue.
“This place is pretty run down,” Angel said.
“It’s a junk heap. And you’ve got dark, one out of ten in a population like this.”
“So why come here, Finn? Why follow me? Why not warn me off, tell me it’s not the best place to be?”
“Who the hell are you going to hang around with if you’re not hanging around with the dark?”
“I don’t know. Normal people.”
“You might find that hard.”
“Hard?”
“Have you taken a look around you? Have you seen the sort of people we’re walking along here with? You see those tenement buildings up there, the windows smashed, the walls stained with fire? You think you’re going to get to Oz along this road, Dorothy? Hell, you haven’t got a chance.”
At the clinic, they waited more than twenty minutes before Finn was called. He was gone fifteen minutes or so, and when he came back he had a smile on his face.
“It’ll be fine,” he said as they left the building. “I haven’t been with anyone since the institute, and they tested us there. I am safe.”
“Let’s just wait for the results and see.”
“And then, what, you’re going to let me help you out?”
“Let you help me out?”
“Give me your disease and show you how to live, because I’m guessing, Angel, that by the time we get back, at least for you, in your fast-darkening version of the world, Jason will have gone.”
23
Angel pounded on the door, but Finn had a key. “I figured he’d be disappearing, so I nabbed it.”
“Where do you think he’s gone?”
“Where do I think he’s gone?”
“Yeah.”
“You just don’t get what I’m telling you, do you? You’re dark now. You’re stuck. You’re slipping out of the mundane world and into the mire, and if you want to see it again, the wide green fields of home, then your best chance is to stick by me, because I can see it all.”
“But I can see it too. We’ve just been out, on the street. Cars. People. An average day.”
“Or maybe it was a little blanker on the way home?”
“What?”
“Not quite so many cars. Not quite so many people. No nice old ladies.” He hesitated. “You see a child?”
“What?”
“You see a child?”
“School’s in.”
“Yeah, but we passed a school, Angel, and it was as silent as the grave.”
“So what are you telling me?”
“You’re slipping into the underworld, into the mire. You can see things you didn’t use to, and things you did see, you no longer can. Most guys like you, they’ll drag themselves back up. They’ll find some innocent to fuck, pass on whatever they’ve got and get a grip on a bit of the world again. But it’s a messy business. Everyone trying to fuck each other over.”
Angel drew a chair out. He sat at the table and laid his head on his arms trying to think. A few moments later he lifted his head again. “I’ve got an aunt. Up in Maine. She said I could come and stay. I think I’ll go up there. It’s a farmhouse. I think I need a bit of time to hang out — on my own.”
“Oh, so you don’t want my company?”
“Finn, you’re fucking me in the head. And I don’t like this, being in the city. I don’t like having my sleeve pulled in the street and being told there’s some potential mass murderer walking toward me.”
“So you’re going to Maine?”
Angel nodded.
“Can I give you my phone number?”
24
“Angel?” Aunt Faith said, concerned apparently, standing on her porch and staring at him as he walked toward her. “What have you done to yourself?”
“Nothing. I guess I’ve been working out.”
“But you’re taller, and your hair. Your face.”
He glanced at his sneakers and twisted a foot into the gravel of the drive.
“You haven’t been going in for plastic surgery, have you? You haven’t spent your mother’s money on that.”
“No.” Angel raised his head. “But I guess it’s a few months since you’ve seen me.”
Faith frowned. She stood back and looked Angel up and down with her hands on her hips.
“Well, I can’t say you’re not looking good,” she said. “A little pale.”
“I’ve been keeping out of the sun.”
“No more surfing, then?”
Angel shook his head.
But then, once they’d walked through to the kitchen and taken a seat at the table, Faith said, “Have you been waxing your arms?”
Angel crossed them defensively. “No. It’s some sort of disease — something I picked up. I’ve lost a lot of body hair.” All of it, he added silently, thinking of the way his groin now looked.
Faith nodded, her eyes widening as she traced Angel’s features. “But you look like a different person. You look …”
Ethereal, Angel thought, though all he did was glance away. Like a fairy — or an angel.
His aunt made coffee, and she’d baked an orange cake. Soon they were talking companionably, though every now and then he’d catch something in Faith’s expression as she noticed the way he’d smiled or blushed. This was no better than New York. What he really wanted was to be at home, with his mother. And if his mother had been alive, he would have told her all of it.
In the shower, Angel felt unexpectedly horny. It was odd to be alone again, even if he’d spent only a single night at Jason’s, and being alone and naked in the shower, Angel felt his attention turn to his body, which had been the focus of so much concern for so many days now. It was as if he needed to reassure himself that everything was where it ought to be. Given what had already happened, there seemed to be no telling what might happen next. His cock and balls might be about to fall off.
As he lowered his head to his groin, a sponge with little green tentacle suckers on it attracted his attention. Idly, he took it off the shelf and positioned one of the suckers over the eye of his penis. He tried to get it to stick, but he needed some soap, and then had to slide it under his foreskin as well. By the time he’d managed it, his cock was hard. He straightened up, the sponge jutting from the end of his cock, and smiled, suddenly electrified. The sharp bite of feeling was almost overwhelming, and he bounced on his toes and shook his hands, determined not to touch his cock, or not to touch it yet, as the pleasure was intense, and somehow better if endured, as though it were pain. A moment later he gave in and gripped the shaft of his cock, standing on the tips of his toes. He poured a gob of conditioner over it and began to jack off. As he was about to come, he gripped the sponge and pulled it away from his cock. The sucker came away with a loud plock, followed by a burst of dark liquid, which crashed against the glass and began to slide downwards, though Angel turned his eyes away from it.
He worked on his penis gently, shutting the jism out of his mind as he focused his attention on coming. His cock seemed enormous. Definitely bigger now than it had been when he got out of the institute. From above, it had a strange graceful curve to it, something that was new, Angel thought, though it might only have been an impression due to the way it jutted so assertively from his groin. What was definitely not an impression, though, he thought, turning his cock over, were these ridges underneath.
Angel sighed. He turned his cock over again and gently squeezed the head. As he expected, a drop of pearly, dark, blood-like cum rolled out of the eye, glittering under the bright fluorescent lights as though it were alive. Angel shifted his ey
es quickly and glanced at the jism he’d pumped onto the glass. It had pooled where the glass met the tiles at the base of the wall. He writhed away from it and laid his forehead against the wall, closing his eyes and drawing his shoulders in. He didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want to think about it, and did everything he could to wash it away with his foot while he kept his forehead pressed against the tiles. When he opened his eyes again, everything seemed fine. He was holding his penis gently and it was soft now. Surely it couldn’t really have happened? But as Angel lifted the head of his cock, he again, against all reason, caught sight of a smear of the dark jism, and it was then, as he gritted his teeth and cried, that he accepted that something irrevocable had happened to him.
All the rest of it, all of Finn’s talk, all of the changes to his body and the things he’d seen on the street, he could see all of that and somehow keep himself apart from it, but this — this dark fluid — which he might have tried to shut out of his mind, this “drop of black blood from heaven” as Finn had called it, this was undeniable.
He changed into a clean pair of white briefs and put a sweater on. He was used to California and it was cold here, or cool, anyway. His aunt was making Chicken Kiev, which had always been a favorite of Angel’s when he’d stayed in the past. He asked if he could do anything to help, but Faith said no, so Angel took a seat at the table, unable to rid himself of the look of the semen, if it even was semen.
In the morning he woke late. His aunt had gone, most likely into town to do some shopping, though when it got to lunchtime and she still hadn’t returned, Angel wandered out to the garage and was surprised to see her Mercedes, immaculate of course, as she always kept it, but where was Faith? He walked through the house, calling out to her, and then walked over the east paddock to the dam. Yet the property was empty.
He poured himself a bowl of Nutri-Grain around six o’clock, and then went to bed. When he woke, he had a boner, and though he really didn’t want to, he eventually gave in and jacked off. When he came, a spurt of dark jism pulsed into his hand. He stared at for a long time, sickened by the thought of what was happening to him. Eventually he got up, plucked some tissues out of the box and cleaned up the mess. He took a shower, spent an hour or two looking for his aunt again, hiking all over the property, and then, just when he was about to call the police and report her missing, his phone rang.
It was Finn.
25
“Your aunt there?”
“No. She’s gone.”
“She’s there, Angel, but you’ve slipped beyond the barrier between worlds.”
“Slipped beyond the …”
“And I’d say you’re freaking her out. Are you moving around?”
“What do you mean?”
“Eating food and cleaning things.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she’s probably seeing half of it — thinking her house’s possessed. Do her a favor and get out of there.”
“Get out of here?”
“Yeah.”
“But where would I go?”
“Come back here. To Jason’s.”
“But Jason …”
“Jason’s here. He’s dark. He’s crossed over.”
“What?”
“It’s a long story.”
“What have you done to him, Finn?”
“Me? Nothing.”
“Right.”
“You coming?”
“I suppose so.”
On the roads, there was virtually no traffic. He got through Maine and Vermont on roads that were all but empty. As he neared New York, the traffic began to build, though not to what it had been when he first drove into the city, and he somehow found a place to park on the street, right outside Jason’s building. It was dark now, and there was a cold wind. A little way up the street a hooker was staggering in her stilettos, and as Angel glanced at the building beside Jason’s, he saw that it had been burned out. There seemed to be smashed glass everywhere. In the distance, from around the corner, he could hear a group of youths, whooping it up. He pushed into Jason’s building and took the stairs two at a time. No sooner had he knocked on the door than it opened. Jason stood in the doorway, looking wild-eyed, as though he was peaking on some drug. Standing behind him, distant in the kitchen, was Finn.
“This true?” Jason said.
“What?”
“This thing about another world?”
Angel nodded.
“And I’m trapped in it?”
“I don’t — what’s happened, Finn?”
“He had some girl up here,” Jason said. “Said to let her kiss me. Kiss me on the neck. She bit me, drew blood. Drank my blood. And now he tells me I’m a vampire.”
“A — what?”
Angel turned to Finn and Finn shrugged, leaning casually against the kitchen counter. “I figured I was doing him a favor.”
“A favor?” Jason said, wheeling on Finn before turning back to Angel. “Have you seen outside? Have you seen what’s out there?”
Angel nodded.
“And you’re what? You’re a vampire too?”
“No one’s a vampire. What the fuck have you been telling him, Finn?”
“The truth.”
“And what’s that? That there’s vampires?”
“There’s all sorts of things, Angel. A vampire — he’s lucky. With me hanging around he was bound to be taken by someone. Killed most likely.”
“And now I can never die. Did you hear that?” Jason said to Angel.
Angel shook his head.
“Hell. My life. It looks like it’s taking a turn for the better. I had a photo shoot lined up for tomorrow, and now he tells me to forget it, that the place won’t exist, not in the darkness — not in the mire.”
Angel responded instinctively to the fear in Jason’s voice. He stepped forward and took him into his arms. Jason was shaking, but it sure felt good to touch someone else, not simply another human but someone other than Finn. Without wanting it to happen, Angel felt his cock stiffen until it was jutting into the soft package in Jason’s groin.
“He says you can help me,” Jason said, pulling away and wiping his face on his sleeve. “He says if you fuck me, you can give me what you’ve got.”
Angel closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he turned to Finn, who had the shadow of a smile playing around the corners of his lips.
“But I don’t get it,” Jason said. “If you’re a vampire, don’t I already got what you’ve got.”
“I’m not a vampire,” Angel said.
“You’re not—”
“He’s an angel,” Finn said. “An angel in utero. And if he fucks you, well, within the next couple of hours would be ideal, then, well, my guess would be that you’ll be an angel too.”
“An angel? Oh, what the fuck is happening?” Jason said. He collapsed onto the couch and cradled his head in his hands.
Angel glared at Finn, but Finn met his look steadily, looking as though he’d done nothing wrong and could never do wrong, his blond boy looks hiding a nature that was what? Unfathomable, Angel guessed. What sort of game was he playing?
Angel turned away from him. He sat on the couch and took Jason into his arms again. Jason was babbling now.
“He says I’ll have to drink blood, and that sunlight will burn. He says I’ll live by night, and seek out the mundane, once he can teach me how to see them again.”
Angel tightened his grip. Jason was fresh from the shower, his hair a little damp. He smelled of soap and conditioner, and again, Angel felt himself stiffen.
“So, you going to do it?” Finn said.
“Do what?”
“Fuck him.”
“No one’s fucking anyone, Finn.”
“Oh, please,” Jason said, lifting his head, “if you can save me from this thing.”
Angel drew away and flopped against the back of the couch.
“Thinking about it?” Finn said.
“You
know, you’re a real fuck,” Angel said. “No wonder they had you locked down in the institute.”
“Oh, they had me locked down because they worked me out. That Hunter. He got my number. He knew I wasn’t one of you guys. And then, well, they weren’t prepared to take any chances on me.”
Jason reached for Angel’s hand. “I haven’t been with anyone — not since we got out of that place. So I should be clean. Angel, I don’t want to be a vampire. I couldn’t kill a fly. How the hell could I kill a person? How the hell could I drink their blood?”
26
Angel agreed. He figured he had no choice. They disappeared into the bedroom, Finn telling them that they needed to do it seven or eight times to be sure.
Jason peeled his T-shirt over his head and Angel took a breath. Jason had a stunning chest and washboard abs. As he lowered his jeans, he saw Jason’s cut cock hanging flaccid. He didn’t look like he was in the mood for sex; he looked frightened, if anything, and as Angel was taking his boxers off, he realized that Jason was standing, staring at the size and shape of Angel’s cock.
“That’s pretty big,” Jason said.
Angel averted his head and smiled, thinking it a little funny as he remembered what Finn had said about Jason liking big cocks. Jason tapped Angel’s elbow and passed him a tube of lubricant. Then he lay face down on the bed and shuffled his knees apart. Angel slipped a gob of the lube between Jason’s cheeks before slipping a finger inside him.
“You don’t need to do that,” Jason said. “I can take pretty much anything.”
Angel nodded, but slipped a second finger in, surprised to feel how easily Jason gave way. Jason groaned, as though he might come, and Angel pulled his fingers out. He climbed over Jason, struggling awkwardly on one elbow while he angled his cock into Jason’s hole. He slid forward, exhaled, and was overwhelmed by pleasure as he pushed forward again, the length of his cock sliding deep between Jason’s cheeks until it was buried to the hilt. Then he stopped and took a breath and felt momentarily as though this were his first time. He supposed it had been a while — more than a month, certainly.
Gently, he drew away from Jason, drawing his cock out to the head. Then he began to pump with long, slow drives, using the muscles in his lower back and abs, while making sure not to pump too hard, too fast. If he had to do this seven or eight times tonight, then he needed to pace himself. He bit Jason’s neck and Jason squirmed. And with that single movement — the squirming of Jason’s body — Angel orgasmed. His cum pumped deep into Jason’s butt, and as it did, Jason’s ass shook with a spasmodic movement, clenching and unclenching and strangling Angel’s cock.
