[FIC] Old Ghosts -- a Halloween story (M/M)
Old Ghosts
By Cat Kane
Part Two
“You’re sure you can’t stay?”
Carrie leaned up on her tiptoes, kissing Jake’s cheek. “I gotta be up early, so yeah, I’m sure. Besides, you seem kinda pre-occupied tonight.”
“No I’m not.” The defense was a little too quick, to eager, to be a true denial. Even Carrie could see right through it, and considering Carrie could barely see past an end of season sale at JCPenney, Jake thought that was saying something.
“Liar.” She smiled, then canted her head, watching him thoughtfully. “We have fun, right?”
"Where’s that coming from? Yeah, of course we do.”
Carrie nodded. “Then that’s okay. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Get some rest.”
Standing on the sidewalk outside his apartment building, Jake watched her walk away until she disappeared around the corner of the block. A gentleman might have offered to walk or drive her home, but Carrie always brushed off the offer. Jake suspected it had less to do with chivalry, and more to do with the anxiety attack he’d had the first time he’d attempted it, unthinking of how the shadowed streets, darkened windows and hidden alleys would affect him. He’d been foolish enough to believe that since he was out with a girlfriend, walking quiet suburban streets, it would keep the panic at bay.
Yeah, some catch he was…
He was fine during the day. When he could see clearly the secrets lurking in his surroundings, it rarely troubled him. When he could tell that the shadow one someone’s porch was just a chair or a pile of pumpkins, when he could see that the dark hollows of the windows around him held nothing more sinister than drapes and a potted plant.
In the dark…the dark was different. Without Carrie’s company, he felt more afraid on the empty street than he’d ever known.
And something was watching him.
A cold prickling tickled the nape of his neck, a tingle of sweat shivering down his back despite the chill of the evening. Not paranoia, not imagining snipers in high windows, not the sense of dread that used to have him turning around, camera braced, ready to capture some new atrocity.
The reality of it.
If he turned around, he’d come face to face with his watcher. He could all but feel their breathing, the gentle shushed displacement of air.
He smelled smoke. It had been a staple in the early days, but this wasn’t the same; this wasn’t the acrid, foul smelling stench of things he’d rather not know about burning to ashes. It was like wood smoke, a campfire crackling with cherry-wood, cigars and nutmeg, sweet and spicy in the cold fall night.
He’d smelled it somewhere before, if the anxiety that kept him rooted to the cold sidewalk would allow his mind to access it.
“Benjamin,” someone whispered, and Jake froze. “Ben.”
He shouldn’t have recognized the name, let alone reacted to it, but the two foreign syllables sent fingers of ice scraping down his spine.
Once, he might have turned to face things. He’d been a head-on kind of guy. Now, it took all the will he had just to stay upright as he stumbled back up the steps to the apartment building, pushing open the heavy security door and hearing the reassuring thunk of locks closing behind him.
If only that door kept the fear out, then everything would be perfect.
* * *
Outside the comforting dark of the drawing room, Benjamin looked different. Hardly disappointing, he could never be that, especially after all this time, but Samuel despised the terror shaking his frame.
Samuel spoke his name, but to no avail. It frightened his precious charge even more. Perhaps this odd landscape petrified Ben as much as it did him.
For a moment, he stared in bewilderment, trying to fathom when Ben had become so accustomed to the lavish lifestyle that he resided in such a large house. The odd patchwork of illuminated and darkened windows made him think it was perhaps a collection of flats instead; some of the London townhouses were being converted last time he recalled.
It came to him briefly that he recalled very little of the time in between. Short burst of light and activity when some poor unsuspecting wretch opened the casket doors, only to have it slam back shut.
Perhaps he’d never known as much as he thought.
Perhaps Ben still hadn’t forgiven him.
Yet it had been Ben’s image carouselling through his mind in the darkness, when he realized the tortuous paralysis that kept him prisoner all those years weakened enough to allow him to feel his fingers, his limbs. Moving was insufferably slow, like trudging through mud, extremities awakening with the tingled pain after a particularly acute attack of pins and needles.
When he opened his eyes, he still saw the darkened interior of the casket, but the dark moved, swirling and shifting like a monochromatic kaleidoscope.
Take me to him, he thought. nothing else matters, just take me to Ben.
Like the flicking pages of a picture book, the next recollection he had was of the dark haze around him dissipating, brushed away by the cool hand of an autumn breeze. He was on a street, and less than ten feet ahead of him stood his beloved Ben. Safe. Alive.
Afraid. Always afraid.
He’d never been under any illusions that Ben approved of his actions, but hoped that with time, as he grew better and stronger, Ben might at least understand.
Clarence came to the estate just as he’d promised. The late October evening had turned for the worse, a murky, misty night with clouds like flint. Rain lashed as Clarence’s car rattled onto the long driveway in front of the house.
“Foul evening, Samuel.” Clarence brushed rain off his sleeves, the short journey from vehicle to doorway drenching him thoroughly. Samuel’s staff hurried to take his coat and hat, bustling quietly and efficiently.
“This way,” Samuel said, not eager to engage in conversation about the weather, nerves taut and shivering, desperate and impatient to get it all done with. At the time, he foolishly believed Clarence felt the same, when the older man simply followed in silence, offering no argument.
Still, Samuel paused at the drawing room door, fingers grazing the handle in a near caress, breathing deeply before pushing the door open.
“Ben.” He stepped carefully into the room, moving as he’d seen his father’s stable hands move around frightened foals. “Ben, we have a visitor.”
The figure at the window didn’t budge, though Samuel hadn’t truly expected him to. He sighed softly regardless as he walked over to the wheelchair, kneeling next to Ben to check that the blanket was still tucked warmly around his knees.
Before he left, Ben’s beauty, passion and intelligence left Samuel breathless. The beauty remained, not so much as a visible scar to mar it, and Samuel convinced himself the intelligence and passion remained locked away behind those eyes, behind the terrors Ben must have witnessed.
Reaching out, he brushed a lock of golden hair from Ben’s empty blue eyes.
“Mr. Francis is here to help you.”
Not even a flicker. Behind him, Clarence seemed to grow impatient; Samuel swore he heard a cluck of disapproval as Clarence set a plain brown briefcase down on the table, like a good doctor.
“We should get started.”
Samuel nodded, wheeling Ben closer, noticing no change in his lover’s expression. He drew an upholstered wing chair to Ben’s side, sitting close and reaching for one of the hands Ben held limply in his lap. Clarence raised a brow, but said nothing. Samuel decided it was a scant price to pay that Clarence’s suspicions were confirmed.
“Perhaps you would rather wait outside,” Clarence said mildly, withdrawing candles, dark and thick as sapling trunks from the briefcase, setting them in an arrangement on the table. Vials came next, apothecary bottles filled with substances Samuel was at a loss to identify, uncertain whether he even wanted to.
“No.” He shook his head vehemently. “I won’t leave him alone.”
“As you wish.” A stringed charm followed. Samuel wondered if the briefcase was a living breathing imitation of the bottomless boxes used by magicians. “In fact, you can make yourself useful. Have him hold that, will you?” Clarence handed him the charm, glancing briefly-disdainfully-at Ben. “You’ll have more luck than me.”
Samuel glared-all he’d thought to do at the time, desperation driving him on-and snatched the charm. It was little more than a tangled twist of fraying twine, on which dangled smaller white objects that clattered together. Samuel grimaced, noticing they looked remarkably like teeth.
“Where did you get such a thing?”
“Hardly any of your concern, Samuel.” Clarence glanced up at him dispassionately, renewing Samuel’s image of the methodical doctor. “An acquaintance of mine found it in India some years ago, if you must know.”
Samuel could imagine Clarence’s acquaintances. Unfortunately.
Instead of thinking too hard upon it, he busied himself with the task at hand.
“Come on, Ben.” He coaxed gently, unfurling one of his lover’s unresponsive hands, squeezing softly before attempting to wrap the fingers around the twine. “Try, for us.”
Ben’s eyes slid slowly to his, though Samuel didn’t know what his lover saw-a frightened, cowardly man who was taking the easy way out rather than fighting the doctors and their judgments to ensure Ben proper treatment.
Proper treatment. Such a joke. Even those who gave credence to his condition were liable to pack him off to some institution, and that would be the end of them both.
A frightened, selfish coward, then.
Averting his eyes, he set his lips in a grim line, closing Ben’s fingers over the charm. “Trust me. Please…”
Clarence made another impatient noise, and Samuel reluctantly let go of Ben’s hand.
“You still have made no mention of payment,” Samuel murmured, watching Ben’s gaze drop to his lap. At least the charm seemed to demand what attention he had, like a child with a jangly toy.
“Did you not agree no price was too high?”
Samuel should have quibbled that assertion. “And I stand by my agreement. I only want to know what-“
“The talk of price is later.” Clarence dismissed him. “You seem very eager to pay the piper, Samuel.”
“I just want it done.”
“At any price?”
Later he would remember the tang of pleasure in Clarence’s voice, the lascivious, greedy look, as though he’d been invited to an unparalleled feast.
“Yes,” he said. “At any price.”
But what difference did it make now? Ben was still afraid, even if there was significantly more life in his eyes than Samuel remembered from the days after the war. Those blue eyes saw now, he knew. They witnessed, they appreciated. They lived.
He stepped up to the door of the building. Judging from the arrangement of oddly shaped doorbells, then it was a multi occupancy building, yet nothing like the ones Samuel remembered. Ben never afforded nor sought such luxuries, not that Samuel minded a jot bestowing such gifts and indulgences, even when Ben didn’t like to admit he enjoyed it. There was nothing wrong with the enjoyment of pleasure. Once upon a time they’d learnt that together.
There was no Benjamin Harvey on the list of names next to the doorbells. Samuel decided to press each one, and simply hope that Ben might answer to one of the foreign names.
When a disembodied voice emanated from the wall in front of him, it was all he could do not to leap out of his skin. As he stared around, seeking the source of the voice, the gravelly words formed themselves into a lady speaking. At least, he thought it was a lady; much as the voice crackled and hissed, he couldn’t be certain.
“Whadd’ya want?”
A lady couldn’t possibly mean him that much harm, could she? Still scanning the wall for some clue as to her whereabouts, Samuel shook his head. “Where are you, madam?”
Silence, then another of those odd crackles. “You sellin’ somethin’, huh? Well I ain’t buyin’! Get outta here!”
Samuel blinked, startled into stillness. “No, madam, I assure you, I’m only-“
“I said get out!” More crackling. “Damn kids…”
A loud click pre-empted her silence.
Still contemplating how her voice traveled that way, Samuel’s gaze rested on a small grated square next to the doorbells, similar to the grate of a confessional, and decided it must be a speaker of some kind. Albeit the crackling gave it away, the voice might as well have been standing next to him for its clarity and precision.
Despite everything, Samuel smiled to himself-this truly seemed to be such and advanced age. Mr. H. G. Wells himself could never have imagined such a vision of the future. Perhaps he and Ben could come to enjoy it together, he thought. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter that Ben was truly a child of this age now, and simple devices such as the speaker rendered Samuel awestruck.
He ran a finger down the list of names for a second attempt. The grooves and ridges under his fingers reminded him how long he’d been denied the simple pleasures of touch, of moving a hand and feeling the word as a tactile being. The slatted metal of the grate speaker was cool and sharp, and the molded material of the doorbells worn and smooth.
What would Ben feel like to touch in this age? Sinewy muscle and soft skin, hair like silk and lips like velvet. Would those things be the same?
Two of the names were undoubtedly female, and one merely listed a surname. Samuel referenced the latter for later, fingertips resting on the very last button-Jake Corbett.
This one.
He pressed the button. Somewhere in the distance he swore he heard the resonance of the sound, like the echo of a servant’s bell from several rooms away.
Eventually, the crackling came again, noise surrounding him like mist.
“Yes?”
One syllable, and Samuel’s heart leapt, pulse fluttering so hard in his throat that he wasn’t sure he could speak more than the requisite word.
“Ben?”
A loud clatter resounded around him this time, as if Ben-or Jake-had dropped something. Then, softer than summer drizzle, came a quavering, “Who are you?”
“Ben, it’s me. Samuel.”
Silence. Samuel closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the grate, desperate to be as close to the ghost of Ben’s voice as he could.
“I don’t know a Samuel. You’ve got the wrong person.”
Samuel squeezes his eyes tighter; the tremor in that voice was so surely Ben, even if the name, the tenor and the pitch were different. American, his brain, rusty from lack of use, supplied. Drawn out vowels and a questioning lilt to every word, as though the world itself surprised them, but they could hardly summon the energy to respond.
“Ben, please-“
“Don’t call me that. Go away.” It sounded far more a plea than the lady’s threat. “Or I’m calling the cops.”
The police? Samuel wasn’t certain at all how this society functioned, but he doubted it had changed that much. In any age, the police’s involvement was rarely good.
“But you are.” He rested his hands either side of the speaker, as if he could connect with Ben that way. “You wouldn’t have woken me otherwise.”
“When he forgives you, my boy,” he could still hear Clarence say, “when he forgives you your selfish sins, then you’ll have paid the price.”
“Please-“
“Go away.” The fear twined with a resolution, a defiant edge he’d loved so much. “Please, just go away.”
Hands curling into fists, Samuel forced himself to breathe, a concept still too long forgotten to be truly habitual.
Not again. He refused to believe his actions were frightening Ben yet again, despite the panic decorating his beloved’s voice like froth edging a rough tide. Samuel barely recalled the panic-Ben had lapsed so quickly into apathy, that stage lasted all of a few weeks.
“Wait, I’m-“
The clicking sound that he came to understand signified the end of the conversation, like the click of telephone exchanges, echoed dully in his head and around the small hallway in which he stood.
Samuel leaned heavily against the speaker, let out a long, shaky breath. Somewhere in this building, Ben might very well be doing the same thing. He traced the grate of the speaker, wishing he could just melt into it, let the wires carry him to Ben, but whatever lingering magic had brought him here refused to help.
He glanced at the name again. Jake. His Ben. Whatever the other man believed, Samuel would have to prove to him that this was real.
Sighing, he levered himself away from the wall, brushing one finger against the nameplate again in the vain hope that Ben would feel the reassurance somehow. In the meantime, he had to find a way to get by in a world he didn’t recognize.
Stepping out of the narrow hallway-claustrophobic by anyone else’s standards, but to Samuel it felt like a ballroom-he looked up at the windows, some dark, some lit.
“Good night, Ben.”
* * *
Jake dreamed of dark drawing rooms, flickering candlelight, and something rough binding his hands. Much as he tried to free himself, his hands refused to co-operate, barely moving to his commands. On the periphery of his awareness, he could hear a rhythmic rattle, and an equally sonorous muttering, almost a chant.
“Come on, Ben,” someone said, yearning and soft. “Try. For us. Please, trust me.”
He woke up late, disorientated, and with a headache that could trigger earthquakes, but he knew exactly where he was going.
On the way to the mall, he called into work, claiming he was spending the day out of the office on a location scouting mission for one of the magazine’s next photo shoot. If anyone asked, the mall seemed like the perfect place to set up a winter themed shoot-commercial consumerism meets Santa’s elves.
This early on a weekday with no kids around, the Halloween store was unnervingly quiet. The toys and machines made more noise, less frightening for the whirrs and clicks of motors that betrayed what they really were.
It wasn’t the kid who greeted him next to the animatronic displays this time, but an older guy, face pinched by narrow wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose. He looked a little like a shortsighted ferret.
“Uh…” Jake frowned at the empty space where the coffin had been. “What happened to the decoration that was here yesterday?”
The ferret man made a face. “It’s gone.”
“Oh.”
He ignored the flare of disappointment. Of course the thing would’ve sold, it was a gorgeous piece of artisan craftsmanship besides being a Halloween decoration. Someone was sure to snap it up, he’d been foolish to leave without the damn thing. Maybe that’s why he was going crazy-a Halloween toy was haunting him.
“Do you happen to know who bought it?”
“What?” The man glared at him. “No-one bought it, it’s gone.”
Jake paused. “Gone?”
“The hell are you, kid, some kinda mime? Yeah, gone. We got in this morning and the goddamn thing’s just gone.”
“But it can’t just-“
“Can, and did,” the man said. “Shoulda known better when it just appeared outta nowhere. Fricking messed up, I’m telling you.”
Jake watched him walk away, before looking back at the empty space, fighting the urge to shiver.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’m starting to think you’re right.”