Like Light for Flies

by Lee Thomas

  Eventually they did have coffee. Naked, Denis followed Fred back to the kitchen and they again had to wait for the machine to warm up, but this time they talked and touched one another without reticence. They laughed. When they both held full mugs of coffee Fred led Denis to the French doors that opened onto an expansive deck. The clatter of rain greeted the opening of the panels and Fred stepped outside.

  “It’s raining,” Denis said.

  “Yeah,” Fred said. He smiled. “I’m weird like that.”

  So they leaned on the redwood railing, shielding their coffees from the misting rain with their upper bodies. Fred wrapped his arm around Denis’s waist and pulled him close.

  “We’re doing this again, right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Denis said without hesitation.

  Then they were kissing, pressing tightly together. Rain ran down their chests and coursed in rivulets around their compressed bellies. Fred backed him to the railing and his mouth went to Denis’s neck.

  “Son of a bitch,” Fred muttered.

  “What’s wrong?” Denis asked, following the direction of Fred’s gaze.

  Blue and white lights flashed against the canopy of trees rising above the neighboring houses. He recognized the color and the pattern of a police unit’s bubble lights. In the road out front, a car squealed to a stop.

  “Might be serious,” Denis said.

  “Looks like more than one,” Fred said. “Let’s check it out.”

  They dressed and walked out front. Two police cruisers and an ambulance lined the curb in front of the house by the park. Other neighbors had wandered onto the walk, forming a tight group near the back of the nearest police car.

  “I’m gonna head up and see if anyone knows what’s going on,” Fred said. “Be right back.”

  He padded barefoot along the wet sidewalk and sidled up to the group of gawkers. After chatting with a young blonde woman, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest, Fred nodded and hurried back to where Denis waited.

  “Looks like the guy killed himself.”

  “Seriously?”

  “That’s what everybody up there is saying.”

  “Shit,” Denis whispered. “Did you know him?”

  “Not really. I saw him around. Mowing his lawn. Jogging in the park.”

  “Should we go back inside?” Denis asked.

  “Yeah,” Fred said. “I don’t think I need to see them wheel a body out.”

  Denis left Fred’s house early the next morning. To his right, an official vehicle, the color of pewter, pulled away from the curb. Instead of going directly to his car, Denis walked down the street to get a better look at the scene. He didn’t expect to actually see anything unusual, but he wanted a better look at the house.

  Like Fred’s it was modern, with sharp edges and a lot of glass, but this house had a second floor and a balcony that overlooked the park on the west side of the roof. Yellow warning tape was used to make a fence across the front porch and an X, blocking the front door. All of the windows were black with interior gloom, and Denis briefly wondered why the police would leave the blinds and curtains of a crime scene open.

  Another curious thing caught his eye. A hedge of thigh-high shrubs ran across the bottom edge of the living room picture window. It was lush and well-tended, its top flat and even, but the bush nearest the front door was blackened as if it had been scorched. Denis thought this odd, but there could have been a hundred different explanations for the discoloration. For all he knew, it had been that way for weeks.

  He lifted his gaze from the hedge and his breath caught in his throat.

  Someone stood in profile in the living room window. The figure was pale. Motionless.

  Denis took a step back.

  As if in response, the figure lurched forward and scurried out of sight.

  Denis spent the next two nights with Fred. Their time together was marked by a relaxed familiarity as if months and not days had passed, but the intensity of their attraction was all new. Fresh. Overwhelming.

  Thursday night, as the sweat cooled on their skin and Fred rested his head in Denis’s lap, Fred said, “Did you see the news about Old Johnny today?”

  Jonathan Lucio was the name of the man who’d killed himself in the house down the block. Fred had taken to calling his late neighbor, “Old Johnny.” Denis had skimmed the story at his office over the past couple of days, but found it all too unpleasant to pursue. Apparently Lucio was a lobbyist for a Christian outfit, Soul Safe, that pushed an anti-abortion agenda to state and federal legislators. There had been no word in regard to the manner of his death other than the phrase, “At his own hands.”

  “No,” Denis said.

  “He had a Facebook page,” Fred said.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Yeah, but that’s where he posted his suicide note.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “You don’t know crazy. He put a curse on the world. Said his blood would grease the hinges of the gates of hell.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It was something like that, but he definitely used the words ‘gates of hell.’ I caught a screenshot of it before they shut it down.”

  “You snagged a screen shot? That’s got sick fascination written all over it.”

  “Eh,” Fred said, nuzzling his ear against Denis’s crotch. “A bit of morbid curiosity never hurt anyone. You want to see it?”

  “Later.”

  They remained in silence for several minutes. Denis ran his palm through Fred’s close-cropped hair, feeling the ridges of the skull beneath the stubble.

  Finally Fred spoke. “I’m going to have to have the talk with Eric. We’re going to dinner tomorrow night.”

  “So I should make other plans?” Denis asked.

  “Only for dinner. I should be home by nine—maybe eight if he storms out of the restaurant, which seems highly probable. I mean it’s up to you. Do you think we need a night off?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” Fred turned his head and kissed the head of Denis’s cock. He growled deep in his throat and shifted his position. With his tongue, he drew a line through the trail of hair on Denis’s stomach and chest, and then climbed on top of him. “A night off would suck.”

  Denis stood in his kitchen, drinking a beer. The microwave moaned its pitying dirge as a plastic tray of meatloaf and mashed potatoes turned circles on a glass carousel. Seven minutes. Power setting: High.

  He couldn’t say he enjoyed the evening, back to eating a frozen dinner, waiting for Fred to finish his date with Eric. Jealousy didn’t enter his emotional space, though he kept telling himself it would have been an understandable guest. He didn’t know Fred all that well. Maybe the man would decide he needed more twink in his life and postpone the break up. Maybe he’d never intended to break it off with the guy in the first place. But Denis didn’t really doubt him. Fred had a casual honesty, revealing traits and actions that weren’t always flattering. He didn’t present this information with dramatic build-up or hesitance, as if fearing Denis’s reaction. He stated things simply, the way he’d told Denis about his dinner with Eric.

  He ate in front of the television, watching an episode of some droning sitcom he’d seen half a dozen times before. The food tasted bland. The frozen meals always did. At five minutes to nine, he left his apartment and drove across town to Fred’s house.

  Several times during the drive, Denis told himself he should have called ahead. He didn’t even know if Fred had made it back from dinner, yet. He felt a moment of relief when he saw the man’s car parked in the driveway, and then a moment of panic when he considered that Fred might not be alone.

  “How’d it go?” Denis asked as he walked through Fred’s front door.

  “Not well,” Fred said. He kissed Denis and pulled away. “Not the way I expected anyway. You want a beer?”

  “Sure. What do you mean not well?”

  He listened to the explanation while following Fred into the kitchen.


  “I don’t know,” Fred said. “I expected him to be indignant. Figured he’d give me some twink attitude before storming out. But he wanted to talk about it. I mean he actually looked hurt.”

  “I can understand that,” Denis said.

  “Yeah but we have something… different. I don’t know. I guess I didn’t give the kid enough credit for depth.” Fred stood in the light of the open refrigerator and handed Denis a bottle. “Anyway, I felt really shitty about the whole thing until he called me old and fat, and then I just felt a little shitty about it.”

  “You’re not fat.”

  Fred looked at him wryly over his own beer bottle. He whipped the refrigerator door closed.

  “And you’re not that old,” Denis added.

  Fred walked past and slapped him on the ass. “You’re on bottom tonight, buddy. I’ll show you what old and fat can do.”

  The tire hissed around the blade of the Boy Scout knife in Eric Morden’s hand. He hadn’t used the knife in a dozen years, and he hadn’t even seen it in two, but as motherfuckers went, this motherfucker was prepared. The tire deflated. The corner of the car sank. He yanked the blade free and snapped it back into the handle.

  Eric wasn’t used to getting dumped. He was beautiful; everyone told him so. And yet some middle-aged, chunky-assed douchebag had sent him packing? It didn’t make sense. It defied Eric’s laws of physics, which was to say that a pretty face and tight abs were fucking gravity.

  Who the fuck did Fred think he was? (And what kind of geek-ass grandpa name was Fred, anyhow?)

  Satisfied with the damage, Eric walked hurriedly back toward the park. As he approached the house on the corner, he noticed a man standing on the edge of the lawn. The guy wore a suit that was black or dark blue and a narrow tie over a white shirt. Eric slowed his pace and considered crossing the street—(Did he see what I did?)—but the man turned away as if he’d seen nothing and walked into the park. There he stopped in the shadows beneath a pine and leaned back against the trunk. Eric could just make out the smudge of paleness that made up the man’s face.

  He didn’t notice the house on his right. There was no reason he should. The police tape had been removed and he never followed the news. The house was just a house, but the man ahead, the guy leaning against the tree, might be something he needed—a hard distraction.

  The park had a reputation for cruising; that’s probably why fat, old Fred had bought a house so close to it. Eric strolled into the park, fully aware of the man’s eyes on him. He paused to get a better look at the guy. Pale, he thought. Kind of scrawny. Not hideous but nowhere near Eric’s league.

  Still there was something to be said for convenience.

  He walked up to the man and said, “Hey.”

  Without returning the greeting, the man grinned broadly. He reached out and cupped Eric’s crotch. His fingers gripped a bit too tightly, but Eric said nothing.

  Then the man released his hold and walked away from the tree. He headed at an angle toward the back of the house on the corner, and Eric followed. He wanted to believe the man owned the house, so close to Fred’s. Somewhere deep down in the spongy darkness of his mind he imagined hitting it off with the guy, visiting the house a few times; maybe sunning himself on the front lawn just to catch Fred’s eye. Make the asshole squirm a little.

  On the patio behind the house, the trick fell under a dull cone of light from a fixture beside the door, and Eric thought he looked better than he had in shadows. The suit looked like it was quality, and the gauntness Eric had noted in the gloom of the park was nearly erased by the light.

  A plant, maybe it had been a fern, sat on a tall, intricately carved stand beside him. Its fronds and stems were limp and black as pitch.

  “You might want to water that,” Eric said and laughed.

  The man’s grin grew wider and he shrugged. Nodded his head.

  “This your house?” Eric asked.

  The man nodded again.

  Doesn’t he talk? Was something wrong with his voice? His teeth?

  Eric tapped the Boy Scout knife in his pocket for reassurance. He was never comfortable with quick tricks, not until he was done with them. A lot of freaks in the world. The man in the dark suit slid open the back door and stood, grinning like a kid who knew he was getting exactly what he wanted for Christmas. He waved Eric into the house with a flourish of his hand. Eric nodded and stepped over the threshold, took three more steps, and then waited.

  The grinning man walked around him, passing out of the reach of the patio light. He continued through the kitchen and crossed into a gloomy area ahead, which Eric assumed was the dining room, or maybe the whole place was wide open like Fred’s had been. He could barely see but he heard the click of the man’s shoes on hardwood floors.

  Eric followed. The closer he got to the space the darker it seemed to be, as if it were a bank of sooty fog waiting to engulf him. A hand gripped his ass and he felt the man’s body guide him to the right. And the room continued to darken.

  “Hey,” he said. “How about some lights?”

  The hand left his backside and Eric felt a dislocation from reality as if he were dropping through this darkness, rather than just standing at its center. Further, the black air seemed to have density. It buffeted against him, and he again thought of fog. The sensations were startling and Eric reached out to steady himself as he felt certain he would topple.

  “What the hell?” he asked.

  A light clicked on. The grinning man in the suit stood before him, arms outstretched like a magician awaiting approbation for a trick well done.

  Eric shook his head in annoyance.

  Then he saw the bodies on the floor. Three of them. Each one had been crucified face down, pinned by spikes to the hardwood like butterflies on a kid’s wall. He had no time to react before the man swung out and punched him in the temple. The world spun and swirled, and then his feet were kicked out from under him and he fell hard, his head cracking against the polished wood. Once the initial daze passed, he screamed and thrashed, slapping his palms and his heels on the flooring. The man in the suit landed in a kneel on his chest, knocking the scream from Eric’s lips.

  He planted his palms on Eric’s shoulders and leaned forward. His lips parted freeing a thick black liquid like tar. The ichor fell in dark bands over Eric’s nose and mouth and it slipped through his lips. It was bitter and acidic and it began to pour in gouts from the suited man’s mouth. It filled Eric’s nostrils. He held his breath as long as he could, but eventually, he had to open his mouth to breathe. He gasped. The perverse fluid drained into his throat like bitter syrup, and Eric coughed, gagging on the rich filth.

  A moment later, he was flipped over and slid around on the floor like a doll. Facedown, he continued struggling, digging his nails into the glistening finish. A shoe came down hard on the back of his neck. He tried to scream but couldn’t. The black shit had grown thick and dense in his throat and his chest was already heaving for breath. The shoe left his neck. He felt a second of relief before the man dropped onto him, knees digging into Eric’s shoulder blades. Hands wrapped around his brow and pulled his head away from the wood. A moment later he was stunned by the concussion of his face on the boards.

  Then it was time for the spikes.

  They were on the sofa, watching a romantic comedy and drinking beers. Denis leaned against the arm of the couch and Fred curled in front with his head on Denis’s bare chest. “Feeling better about Eric?” Denis asked.

  “Feeling better about everything,” Fred told him. “Better than ever.”

  “Same,” Denis said. He pointed at the television. “Do you know why rich, smart, and gorgeous American women always fall for bumbling, barely articulate British guys in these movies?”

  “It’s the accent. The accent is a snatch magnet.”

  Denis slapped the side of Fred’s head.

  “Too crude?”

  “You think?” Denis said. A second later he was laughing uncontrol
lably over the comment.

  “Tomorrow, I think we should have breakfast at Dewey’s, that pancake place on the other side of the park, and then maybe drive up to the mountains for the day.”

  “It’s supposed to rain all day,” Denis said, running his palm over the fur on Fred’s chest.

  “I doubt it’s going to close the freeways.”

  Denis pinched Fred’s nipple. “Smart ass.”

  “It’s nice up there, even with rain. Maybe we could grab a room at one of the resorts, spend the night out of town?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  He watched the Englishman’s stuttering profession of love on the screen and shifted his weight a bit. “You mind if I order a pizza?”

  “Mmm,” Fred growled. “Fred’s tummy like Denis.”

  “And Denis like Fred’s tummy. Now move your ass so I can reach the phone.”

  “You’re about perfect, you know that?” Fred asked.

  Maxine Gordon stood in front of the house by the park, scratching her head. Early morning light surrounded her in a pinkish haze as she regarded John Lucio’s yard with disgust. The black stain that had devoured his hedges and grass had moved onto her front yard, sweeping like a pointed wave over the lawn. She’d paid too much for soil and sod, not to mention the pricey service to mow and weed every week, to just watch it blacken and die.

  It was bad enough Lucio had killed himself, likely dropping property values in the process, but obviously, he’d set something loose before doing so. Every plant on the man’s property was ruined, and now her foliage was under attack as well.

  She’d already called the city about the situation, and they’d assured her someone would be out to assess the situation, but knowing the city it would be days before one of their drones got off his fat ass to do something. This was simply unacceptable.

  Maxine walked toward the park and noticed the stain had spread in that direction as well. It looked like someone had poured gasoline over the plants and lit them up until they were char, but she’d plucked a blade of her own grass and it hadn’t had the texture of having been burned. If anything, the blade seemed more succulent, fatter, only instead of being filled with variances of green, the plants choked on a darker nutrient.