Day 29

"Yes?" Mrs. Phillips answered the door in some irritation, having been torn away from the football game at an important moment.

"Officer Kelly, Vandervere Police," the policeman presented his wallet badge; he was technically off-duty and so wore civilian clothes instead of his uniform.

"What can I do for you, Officer?"

"I need to speak to Eugene Phillips," Officer Kelly replied.

"He's not here," the woman answered tersely.

"Do you know where I can find him, ma'am?"

"No."

"Can you think of anywhere he might be?" the officer insisted.

"What's this all about, Officer?" Mrs. Phillips crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the door sill.

"Are you his mother?" the officer asked, and when the woman nodded, he went on, "Your son is involved in an investigation, and I need to speak to him about two murders and two attempted murders. It's extremely important."

"You think my son killed those people?" the woman eyed the officer suspiciously.

"No, ma'am, but I think he may have information about the murders, and that puts him in great danger. The killer is targeting people close to Danny Vandervere. Danny's boyfriend is in the hospital right now."

"I didn't know Danny had a boyfriend," Mrs. Phillips looked confused, "I mean, I thought he and Ash were together."

"Can you tell me where to look for your son, ma'am?" the officer felt a thrill of dread at those words but couldn't say why.

"He might be up at his studio," Mrs. Phillips relented, worried about her son's safety, "It's up on River Road, on the right, a mile past the gas station. Danny just went up there looking for him about an hour ago, you'll see their cars if they're there."

"Thank you, ma'am. I'll ask your son to call you when I see him."

"Thank you, officer."

*****

Danny came to very slowly, floating in a feeling of immense pleasure; he could feel someone sucking his cock, and strong hands roaming his skin. He groaned and arched his back lazily, mildly concerned by his grogginess and wondering vaguely where he was and with whom; but the sucking was more interesting, and he concentrated on that instead, letting the orgasm mount with delicious pressure.

It was during his orgasm that Danny realized that he couldn't move his arms, but he was so concentrated on the pleasure he didn't think about it; but afterward, as his breathing returned to normal and his head cleared a little, he pulled again at his wrists and discovered that they were bound in some soft material; his ankles were bound together as well, and immobilized. But it wasn't painful or frightening, just peculiar.

Opening his eyes, he was surprised to see a corrugated steel ceiling instead of plaster -- oh, of course, Ash's studio he thought, closing his eyes again and drifting a little bit -- but then he felt cold metal pressed under his chin, something kind of squarish, and his eyes flew open.

Ash was sitting beside him on the narrow iron bed, leaning over him, his hair pushed back behind a dark purple bandanna, looking thoughtfully at whatever it was that was pressed under Danny's chin.

"Ash? What are you doing?" Danny whispered, his throat dry and weak.

"I don't want you to suffer," Ash explained equably, "But I don't want to make a mess, either."

"What?" Danny couldn't make any sense of that statement. He was naked, and the air in the room was cold.

"If I shoot you here," Ash said slowly, smiling at Danny, "it won't hurt, but it will ruin your head."

Terror cleared the cobwebs out of Danny's mind, and his entire body stiffened: the metal thing under his chin was a gun. Ash was going to kill him.

"Why?" Danny cried out, struggling uselessly at his bound limbs.

"So we can be together," Ash said as if pointing out the obvious, then moved the gun down to Danny's chest, "If I shoot you here, it won't hurt much, but it might tear your chest muscles, it would ruin this beautiful line."

"What are you talking about? Why do you want to shoot me at all?"

"I told you: so we can be together," Ash repeated dreamily, "Oh, I know, I can shoot you under the arm. But if I miss your heart, it will hurt an awful lot. I don't want to hurt you."

"How can we be together if you shoot me?" Danny demanded.

"I'll shoot you, and then myself, and we can be together forever. Nobody in our way, nobody keeping us apart; we'll always be young, just like we are right now."

"That's not how it works, Ash," Danny tried to remain calm, hoping to reason with the boy, though his heart was thumping like he'd just run five miles, and his skin broke out in a cold sweat that smelled acrid with fear; but if had to die, he did not want to die begging, "If you kill us, we'll just be dead. You can't do that."

"No, we'll be together in the afterlife. I know we will."

"No, Ash, we won't."

"You'll be beautiful forever."

"No, Ash, I won't. I'll be dead. All of this beauty, this wonderful body that I know you love, will die. It will turn into dead, cold meat and rot in the ground. You can't do that to my beauty, you can't take it out of the world and turn it into rotting meat."

"You don't need your body," Ash said after a long minute of reflection, "Your spirit is beautiful. You'll always be beautiful, no matter what happens to your body."

"All I have is my beauty, Ash: my face and my body and my talent," Danny looked away from the boy's sad, calm eyes; arguing for his life, he began to wonder whether or not it was worth arguing about, "Without my physical beauty, I'm nothing."

"That's not true," the boy seemed stumped by Danny's reluctance to die with him, "You'll see, when we're together in the next world."

"If you kill me, we will never be together," Danny said bitterly.

"Why not?" Ash felt his foundations crumbling fast, confusion picking away at the monument of his fantasy.

"Because I love my life, Ash," Danny said passionately, "I love my body, I love my friends, and my boyfriend, and my aunts. I want to go to college, and fall in love, have a life. I'm only sixteen years old, I have so much left to do! If you take all that away from me, I will never forgive you, not in this world or the next."

"You'll forgive me," Ash assured him, stroking his armpit with the barrel of the gun.

"Ash, you can't do this," Danny said forcefully, hoping a sharp tone would snap the boy out of his delusion.

Ash sat back, shaking his head, unable to fathom why Danny was arguing with him. He got up and walked around the room, trying to understand Danny's reluctance, looking at the pictures he'd made of their life together in the next world. It was such a beautiful life, full of adventure and love, and he couldn't see why Danny didn't want it.

"Why don't you believe in my vision?" Ash asked sadly, turning to look at Danny; the gun, a huge green hunting automatic, hung loose in his left hand.

"Because it's not real, Ash," Danny felt sorry for the boy, "It's all in your head. Your imagination."

"It is real," he insisted, moving back to the bed and sitting down on the edge, running his hand over Danny's torso affectinately, "It's just this world keeping us from it."

"Why did you kill Mr. Janacek?" Danny hoped to distract Ash from his intention by asking questions.

"I thought he was using you," Ash looked down, ashamed, "I made a horrible mistake. I'm so sorry about that."

"But how did you even know about us?" Danny had always been so careful about locking the door and making sure the curtains were closed.

"I saw you through the window in the door, a little tear in the paper over the glass."

"Why were you peeking through a little tear in the paper?" Danny wondered.

"I've been watching you since the first day of school," Ash smiled a little, embarrassed to admit it but also proud of his ingenuity in keeping track of Danny's movements, "When I saw what he did to you, I started following him. I tracked him to that disgusting cruising park. He came up to me and offered me a blowjob. I let him kneel down, and I pulled off my belt and looped it around his neck, pulling it tight, straight up, until he passed out. And then I used his own belt to finish him off. And I pushed him down to the trail so you could see that you were free of him."

"You were there, all that time?" Danny was creeped out by the idea of being watched.

"Yes," Ash leaned down and kissed Danny, "I've devoted myself to you, Danny. My every waking moment has been devoted to seeing you and protecting you. I love you."

"Is that why you killed Claude? To protect me?"

"You didn't hear the things he was saying about you," Ash's face distorted with anger, "He was maligning you to anyone who would listen. He even maligned you to me; I pretended to listen, pretended to believe his lies. I went with him when he wanted to slash your tires at the Halloween Dance, and cut the paint on your car. But I cut him instead. I shut him up for you."

"But I didn't want it, Ash," Danny said sadly, hoping he could convince the boy to stop what he was doing without hurting his feelings, "Claude was just a dumb kid. He could have grown up into a better man. But you took away his chance."

"I don't understand," Ash frowned, "He was bad."

"Do you think you're bad, Ash? You've done worse than spread rumors and tell lies. You killed two people."

"But they deserved it," Ash pointed out.

"So you punished them? By killing them?"

"Yes," Ash said earnestly.

"And you want to kill me. To punish me?" Danny sprung a trap of logic.

"No," Ash cried, "To set you free, to set us free!"

"But it's the same thing, Ash," Danny said patiently, "It's the same act. It's killing, it's death, either way."

"No," Ash pleaded, tears starting in his eyes.

"And Jeremy?" Danny went on, "What did Jeremy do to deserve death?"

"He kept you from me," Ash sighed, "But I never meant to kill Jeremy, I just wanted to scare him away. And it worked at first, but then he came back. So I had to scare him again."

"That sword would have killed him, Ash."

"No, I watched you in rehearsal, I knew where you'd stab him, right here," Ash reassured him, pressing his finger into Danny's abdomen just under his ribs, "It would go through him, but not hit any vital organs."

"How could you be sure I'd hit him right excactly there?" Danny didn't believe him.

"You hit him in exactly the same place every time," Ash pointed out, "I watched you. You are always exact, always perfect."

"And how did you know that running his car off the road wouldn't kill him?" Danny demanded.

"It didn't kill him."

"But it might have. His airbags didn't deploy. He was only prevented from going into the river by a fluke. Jeremy is a sweet, kind, talented boy, and you might have killed him for no better reason than because he stood in your way."

"That's not what I meant," Ash wept.

"And what about that poor horse?" Danny suddenly realized it was Ash who'd killed the big black Arabian; the horse that had his name, with which Danny's mother had humiliated him, "Ashtaroth wasn't even in your way."

"I was angry," the boy lay down beside Danny, his head over Danny's heart, where he could feel the hot tears dripping onto his skin, "It was cruel of me. I led that horse up to the oleander tree and fed the leaves and flowers to him. He made the most horrible noises, it sounded like screaming. I am so sorry."

"Ash, you have to understand that killing is bad, no matter what. It doesn't punish anybody, it doesn't set anybody free. It's just death, it's destruction. Killing me, killing yourself, it's the worse thing you could possibly do."

"But it would be so beautiful," Ash wailed, curling against Danny.

"No, Ash, it wouldn't," Danny knew he'd stopped the boy, that Ash wouldn't hurt him now, and wanted to comfort him, "I know what you wanted, and your dream was beautiful, your pictures are so beautiful. But we can't have that, it isn't real."

"It should be real."

"Yes, love, but it's not. We have to accept and live with what's real."

"I don't want to," the boy wept like a child.

"Will you untie me, Ash?" Danny asked quietly after a bit, "And put down the gun?"

Ash pulled back and looked into Danny's eyes, his broken heart plain on his face, and nodded. He got a knife from one of his supply boxes and sawed through the silk scarves that he'd used to tie Danny up. As soon as his hands and legs were free, Danny sat up and pulled Ash into his arms, stroking his hair and rocking him as he cried.

They were curled up together like that when Officer Kelly kicked in the door and leapt into the room, his gun drawn. Danny held Ash tighter so he wouldn't be afraid, wouldn't be frightened into doing something stupid, and held out his hand to the policeman, gesturing for him to put away his gun.

"Ash," Danny crooned to the sobbing boy, pulling his face up to look into his eyes, "Officer Kelly has to arrest you. It's his duty. You understand that, don't you?"

"Yes," Ash agreed, sniffling and nodding, looking up at Danny with complete trust, "Do you think it will be hard in prison? For someone like me?"

"Oh, I don't think you'll go to prison, love," Danny kissed him on the forehead, "You'll go to a hospital where they can help you sort everything out."

"You think so?" the boy looked hopeful.

"I'll do everything in my power to make sure," Danny promised him, "But you have to go with Officer Kelly now. He's going to have to handcuff you, it's procedure; but I'll come with you, OK? Everything is going to be all right."

Officer Kelly stood stock still for a moment, marveling at the scene. When Danny gestured to him to take Ash away, he took the cue and was very gentle, putting the cuffs on the unresisting boy and wrapping a comforting arm around his shoulders to lead him out of the little cabin and back to the police car that he'd called as backup.

Danny got dressed, took a long last look around the little cabin with all its pictures of him, and swallowed his own terror in order to help the boy who'd nearly killed him; he shook his head at the irony of that, but decided the distraction was a welcome one -- he'd have time later to let the fear he'd experienced work itself out.

*****

"Hey, sleepy," Danny said when Jeremy opened his eyes.

"Hey, you," Jeremy started to smile, but winced when the smile disturbed the bandage on his face, "Do I look like I feel?"

"That depends. Do you feel like Boris Karloff in The Mummy?"

"Who's Boris Karloff?"

"'Who's Boris Karloff,' he says," Danny shook his head in mock seriousness, "I'm going to have to take your education in hand. Your knowledge of classic cinema is deplorable."

"I've got a DVD player here," Jeremy closed his eyes again, squirming in the hospital bed to get more comfortable, but stopping with a little squeak of pain when his squirming disrupted his collarbone and ribs, "I'm going to be in bed forever, you might as well bore me with your old movies while I can't move."

Danny laughed and took Jeremy's hand in his, and started talking to him about people at school, a subject of which Jeremy never seemed to tire. He also told him about various celebrities who were being talked about on the internet, though he'd had to do hours of research to learn the comings and goings of the new famous, who had never really interested Danny.

And all the time he sat there chatting, he was riddled with pain and regret. Jeremy's face was going to be scarred, his sweet prettiness marred forever -- not enough to disfigure him, but it was a mark that would always be there, a long pale line running from his left eyebrow almost to his jaw. Danny grieved over it considerably more than Jeremy himself, who thought it made him look mysterious and dangerous.

Danny felt incredibly guilty about Jeremy's injuries, knowing that Ash had done what he did on Danny's account -- hauling a deer carcass into the road and waiting in the shoulder until Jeremy's car came around a bend, swerved to avoid the the thing, then laboriously hauling the deer back into the woods and burying it as soon as Jeremy's car went over the side.

He acknowledged that he wasn't responsible for Ash's insane actions, understood that nothing he could have done would have changed the boy from the paths he'd taken; he nevertheless still felt remorse for what Ash had done, because it was for Danny that he'd done it. That knowledge made him sad, just as knowing how Ash was suffering made him sad, seeing the boy struggling with his own remorse, his only relief the long spells of complete disconnect from reality that he still experienced regularly.

Ash had pled 'no contest' to the charges of murder, attempted murder, and destruction of property and animal cruelty; but his sentence was remand to a correctional psychiatric facility on the coast not far from Vandervere. Danny kept in touch with Ash through his mother, whom he called twice a week; she reported that Ash was surprisingly happy in the "nut hut" (as she called it), he had access to art supplies and was encouraged to draw and paint. He still suffered delusions about himself and Danny, but they did not last very long and never featured violence of any kind.

Danny wanted to go visit Ash himself, but Ash's doctors didn't think that was wise at this juncture.
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