Eternal Darkness

ETERNAL DARKNESS A DARK NOVELL A

ETERNAL DARKNESS A Dark Novella By

Johnny Mike

© 2012 Johnny Mike JohnnyMike.com

PROLOGUE

He had to open her eyes.

Susan was dead. She was dead and cold and there was blood, blood everywhere, thick and red-black, down her arms and the side of the tub and spread in a hideous, viscous pool on the ice-white tiles of the bathroom floor. She was dead and she shouldn’t be dead, it couldn’t be true but it was and now he had to open her eyes because if he didn’t she’d be alone in the dark, in a dark eternal night and that was like Hell, he knew for himself it was Hell and Susan didn’t belong in Hell. Susan was an angel, his angel, his love.

He had to open her eyes.

Steve lunged toward the tub. His knees hit the tile and slid through the dark crimson puddle, the half-congealed blood wrinkling into sticky ridges that clung to his pants. He collided with Susan’s outstretched arm, as hard and cold and unforgiving as the edge of the claw-foot tub.

She was frigid. Frozen stiff. And trapped in eternal darkness.

Her eyes refused to open. Steve slid her eyelids upward with his fingers, but they snapped back like rubber. He skittered over to the vanity and pawed through the drawer for the adhesive tape. Tape would keep them open, wouldn’t it? But he couldn’t find any.

He crawled back to the tub and pried her lids up once more, willing them to stay open. He realized he was patting her head, like a pet. That was disgusting. Disrespectful. He began caressing her hair. That was better.

The longer he held her eyelids, the less they snapped back. Her eyes were filmy and gray. He hoped she could see him, trying to take care of her. He hoped she could see the sliver of light. When you were alone in the dark, even a sliver of light could save you.

She had been his. He had to make sure she wouldn’t spend an eternity in darkness. There was no worse torture. That much he knew. But was it too late?

“Push harder.” A familiar and powerful voice spoke within his mind. Steve listened. He always listened.

He jammed Susan’s eyelids up hard, holding them firmly in place. The undersides of her lids were white as porcelain and looked equally frail. He had expected them to be red, veiny even, but they were brittle putty under his fingers. He hoped they wouldn’t tear. “Please.”

He removed his fingers. It worked! She was in the light and could…

“No. No. No!” They were closing. Slowly. Mockingly. Like a wind-up toy on its last step. He looked up at the ceiling, not for God, but for someone else. The ceiling was snowy and white, like a tiny winter scene, but his cold hero was absent. Why wouldn’t they stay open?

He looked back at his wife’s face. The once pink lips, now gray, her rosy cheeks now stone. One eyebrow was cocked upward. She was taunting him!

Bile rose in his esophagus, where it teetered before expelling in a messy arch over the lip of the claw-footed bathtub. His vomit formed a vile Rorschach of protein drink. In it he saw a cocked eyebrow raised high in condescension. It was the bastard who had taken his love from him. The same man who had turned Susan into a smirking traitor. He had played her. She was now the Joker’s laughing box. A message to Steve.

He allowed himself one last look. Her raised eyebrow settled back into place. He recognized her again. Not the traitor, but his wife.

Steve shuddered, then suddenly found himself transported. Time had passed unaccounted for. Again.

He stood shirtless before the bathroom mirror, water running cold. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes looked like canyons, carved deeper by the blood that was drying in them.

He ran his hands under the water and splashed some up at his face. The water softened the dried blood, dripping off his chin and tumbling in long droplets onto the white porcelain sink, leaving pale pink spatter stains. She’s right behind you. He tried to blank out the thought, to lose more time. Focus on the task at hand.

The blood seemed never ending.

Slowly, carefully, he rinsed his face, hands and chest. He had to get it all off.

He reached for a towel, then stopped. If he wiped the blood on the white towels, it would never come out. They’d be ruined. Best to just keep rinsing.

Little pink streams snaked their way down the sink and faded into clearer swirling water. He was washing Susan down the drain. He tried to scoop the droplets into his palm and hold them, but they slipped away.

He felt a trickle down his cheek, which caught the crease of his lips. Then he tasted her. He had drunk a piece of his wife.

A wave of déjà vu hurtled towards Steve. He spat and pressed his face into the faucet’s flowing stream, frantically grabbing for a towel at the same time. He raised his head and pressed the towel hard across his lips. He checked it afterward. No blood.

He turned back to his wife. The deep gouges in her wrists held a hint of frostcolored bone and tendon nestled within them. Would this be how he would remember his angel? In a red cloud of gore? She was his life, or more accurately, his light. Without her he was lost, alone again in darkness. The bright room turned to black around him. Her eyes were closed. She was really dead.

He tried to say sorry, but it came out, “Goodbye.”

As the word left his lips, it was replaced with fire. Hatred. Rage.

Vengeance.

He turned back to the mirror. His eyes paused for a fleeting moment on the broad, well-defined chest before them. His body was chiseled, his mind turning sharper than ever before.

Everything was crystal clear. It had all been staged.

He took the yellow Post-It note off the toilet lid, his sole piece of evidence, and crumpled it into a ball between his strong wet hands. There would be no tears today; warriors don’t cry.

He took out his cell phone and dialed.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“I just came home, and my—” his throat seized for the briefest of moments. He heard the faint voice of his hero gently whisper, “Go on, Stevie.”

He took a deep breath and heard himself lie. “My wife’s killed herself.”

As the 911 dispatcher spoke, Steve watched the yellow Post-It note swirl down the flushing toilet, its first sentence playing like a broken record in his mind.

I’m not sorry for what I just did to your wife.

PART 1: ETERNAL DARKNESS

CHAPTER 1

April 16, 1982 Day It was finally lunchtime at Seven Hills Middle School. With a few deft twists of the dial and a hard tug, Stevie’s locker popped open. That amazing aroma of ink and paper flowed into his nostrils, smooth as silk. Really, if you were a book-sniffer, you’d get it. Didn’t anybody else take a whiff of a new comic book? Stevie did. Did that make him weird? Other people did it, right? Right?

It was absolute paradise.

The first half of the bottom shelf were the classics: a couple Spider-Mans, Green Lanterns, Captain Americas, Supermans. At least four Iron Mans, Batmans, Avengers, and X-Mens. But everything on top of that stack, all the way up to the last shelf where he kept his schoolbooks, was every single edition of Winter Warrior. Well, all but the three his dad had caught him with. He tried not to think about the one taken last weekend, but the punishment for his blasphemy was getting worse by the day.

Two of the eighth-grade cheerleaders walked by, both of them with dark shiny hair down to their waists, wearing outfits that probably cost a hundred dollars. They checked out Stevie. One of them whispered something to the other, and then said, “Hey, Stevie.”

Cheryl Olsen was talking to him! Stevie cleared his throat, trying not to sound like a sixth-grade loser. “Hey, Cheryl.”

She walked over to him, reached out and touched the Winter Warrior picture on the front of the t-shirt he’d been wearing all week. Wow! Cheryl Olson touched him!

“Cool shirt,” she said. He opened his mouth to answer, and she went on, “You know, there’s this new invention called a washing machine. You should check it out.” He looked down at his shirt, red flushing his cheeks. Cheryl flicked his chin with her perfectly manicured fingernail and walked off with her friend, both of them laughing.

Stevie turned around and stared into his locker, his face burning. He knew he looked like a dork. A dirty, loser dork. He was small and skinny for his age, but the white denim cutoffs he wore were so small they squeezed his already thin thighs and hugged his crotch uncomfortably. His Winter Warrior t-shirt used to be white, but it was almost gray from being worn every day, and it had a red line down the front, a dribble of Big Red from Tuesday. The only good thing about it was that it was big enough to almost cover the shorts. With his scuffed white sneakers, he looked like the Special Olympic White Ninja.

But none of it was his fault. He knew how to use a washing machine. Only, ever since his dad had caught Stevie with the Winter Warrior comic books last weekend, these were the only clothes he’d let Stevie wear. He wouldn’t even let Stevie wash them.

Punishment. For being a blasphemer.

Just yesterday his second period teacher asked him, “Is everything okay? You know, at home?”

He hated himself for his answer. “Oh, because of this?” He pointed to his shirt.

“This is my favorite! I convinced my parents to let me wear it every day.”

He couldn’t believe she bought it. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she was like all the kids and secretly laughed at him.

He pulled in the comic-book musk with one last breath. His waistband felt like a tourniquet. How much longer before it was over? Ignore it, he told himself.

At least it was Friday. And not just any Friday. Today brought with it the new edition of Winter Warrior. It only came once a month, and he lived for it.

A mile away from here, a thin stack of them sat on a shelf, crisp and smelling of vibrant ink, just waiting for Stevie to come rescue one. Like a military extraction. Or one of Winter Warrior’s missions. Only it was the journey that would be harrowing for Stevie. If his father caught him on the way to the comic book store, Stevie couldn’t even imagine what awful punishment he’d come up with. He’d probably make Stevie go to school naked.

Oh, but the payoff for blaspheming was so sweet.

He ran his hand down the rows of comic books, reluctant to exhale. They represented almost a full school year of Slim-Jim and Big Red soda lunches. These dollar lunches saved Stevie almost $2.00 per day, which really added up when it came time for his monthly expeditions to Comic Cool.

Summer was coming up, and he had no clue what he would do with his prized collection. He shuddered at what his dad might do should it ever be discovered. Over seventy-five comics, arranged by type and number, with no place to go. Stevie would have to ask Winter Warrior to help him come up with a storage plan. If he had a friend at

school, he could have asked him to store them. A friend with cool parents who were just glad their kid was reading anything at all. But he had no one.

He grabbed the top comic, only the third ever to have featured a smile on the face of Winter Warrior. Stevie always had one friend, anyway.

He took his comic and sketchpad to his favorite spot—outside, underneath an old brown payphone next to the vending machines. Here, the booth shaded his eyes, but allowed the sunlight to illuminate his comic books, creating vivid hues ripe with texture and emotion. It was perfect. There wasn’t much to love about sixth grade, but lunch outside was the bomb.

So what are we gonna do about the stash of comics in my locker? Stevie asked his hero.

Stevie’s pen answered as Winter Warrior. It began to sketch a massive safe. Three locks, solid steel, and hidden deep underground.

Thud, thud. Stevie looked up and saw a football rolling his way. Behind it was Tomas. Oh, no.

Last week during lunch, Stevie had tried to play kickball with the guys. Tomas was one of the team captains. They chose up teams, and Stevie was the only one left not picked. Tomas had looked right past him and said, “That’s it. Come on, guys. Let’s play.”

He’d walked away, his team one man short, leaving Stevie still standing there.

But now there was the football. Inches from his dirty white sneakers. A brown conical chance for redemption.

He hated his dad for not teaching him how to throw one. He knew almost every Bible verse, but had never touched one of these. It was shaped like a torpedo. That

probably meant it should fly in a spiral. How hard could it be? If he threw it right, maybe he could play.

He rose quickly, scared as hell, yet eager to try. He grabbed the ball, and could instantly tell where his fingers should go. The laces made it obvious. So far so good.

He wanted to study the ball, take his time and plan his throw, but they were waiting. Each passing second was making him look awkward, pathetic even. He had to do it quickly, as naturally as he could.

He pictured the ball as an ice spear, a weapon he knew very well. He had visualized it a million times. His body twisted hard and he felt the ball sail out of his hand.

The ball fluttered, but only for a split second. Amazingly, shockingly, it evened out into a tight spiral, hurtling into Tomas’s arms. It even made a little pop in his hands.

Stevie had nailed it!

Stevie smiled at Tomas, a sort of “can-I-play?” smile. But Tomas turned away and threw the ball towards his friends. As it flew he shouted, “Careful, guys, it smells like shit now.”

One of the guys caught the ball, then let it drop in dramatic fashion. “You ain’t kidding! Pig-pen left it greasy.”

Everyone was laughing, laughing at Stevie, but no one would look at him, acknowledge that he even existed. He had thrown a spiral, it was almost perfect, and they didn’t even care. He glanced over at the Goth kids by the planters—the ones who talked to him about comic books sometimes. Looking for a sympathetic smile. But they were

laughing too. They were dressed like zombies and playing with magic cards, and they were laughing at him!

His stupid fucking father! It wasn’t Stevie’s fault. He was forced to wear these retarded clothes. But he didn’t smell bad. He showered every day.

Now today, of all days, he finally got his chance to fit in. And he nailed it! Threw that football like a natural, and his father still ruined it for him.

His father.

Stevie wished his father had just gone ahead and beaten him. It would have hurt less than the humiliation.

When his father had found him with the Winter Warrior comic book, Stevie had begged him not to take his prized shirt too. He had managed to keep it hidden for almost seven months. From everyone. It had been his secret undershirt, like Superman’s outfit.

He’d thought he would get the usual beating, but instead, his father had burrowed into Stevie’s closet. He came hulking out, covered in clothes still on hangers. Bearing down on Stevie like a clothes monster born in the darkness, the back of his hand raised in a threatening gesture, the very caricature of why children fear their closets.

But no strike had come. Instead, he threw the Winter Warrior t-shirt into Stevie’s face. “If you like it so much, keep the damn thing.”

The only thing left in the closet was one wooden hanger with the white cutoffs, from so long ago Stevie hadn’t even recognized them. His father had taken all of his other clothes, even his underwear and pajamas, dragged them to the living room, thrown them down the trap door into the basement, and locked it. That was on Sunday, and now

it was Friday and his dad hadn’t let him have them back yet. He’d probably have to wear the same clothes for the rest of his life.

His father had quoted James 4:3: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

Those were his father’s parting words before Stevie was locked in his bedroom that night. When Stevie was in the fifth grade, his father had turned the doorknobs around to lock from the outside.

Normally when he got locked in his room, he felt comforted by the fact that with a wire hanger he could break out for a terrifying, covert mission if he had to pee, but the ugly shorts hung from a wooden hanger. There would be no escape. But Stevie remained strong, making Winter Warrior proud.

That night, like today, he focused his thoughts on his hero. He envisioned a thousand ways Winter Warrior would make things right again. Just the two of them, together forever against the world.

Stevie spent the rest of the school day planning his route, waiting for the last bell to ring. He had to have that comic book. Winter Warrior was the only thing that made his life worth living. He’d just have to make sure he didn’t get caught this time. Although, even if he was, he couldn’t imagine what his father could do to him that would be worse than this.

He quickly swept his textbook, papers, and pencil into his backpack, and hustled off to avoid being spotted by the masses. Oh man, he was so close to holding his prize!

But excitement would only make him careless. To not get caught was the first priority.

Slinging his backpack over one shoulder, he bounded down the concrete stairs that led to the middle school. The smell of freshly cut grass was heavy in the hot, humid air. He had waited thirty whole days for today, and it smelled just like he’d imagined. He took an immediate left away from the busier street and started his jog, not bothering to look back and see who might be making fun of him now.

He sprinted down a neighborhood street, pausing behind each brick mailbox as he reassessed his surroundings. When it was clear, he dashed to the next.

Pretty much all comic books were awesome, but Winter Warrior was especially awesome. Not just because of his super powers, but because unlike most superheroes, he fought for himself, out of duty to mankind, rather than duty to an individual. There was no swooning damsel in distress, or whiney sidekick. Just the lone Winter Warrior fighting for justice in a fantastical world of white ice-encased cityscapes.

Stevie had to walk a fine line between hurrying home before he was gone too long, and rushing too quickly and being spotted and reported to his father, or even worse, getting caught by his father who sometimes took this route home from work. He swallowed hard.

At the end of the street was a gas station. He would be exposed as he made his way around the front. He carefully peeked around the corner. A brown Town Car idled in the parking lot. Oh no! His dad?

This was not good. Not good at all. Think, Stevie!

He took another look. Gold rims. Out-of-state plates. “Ha!”

He pulled up his backpack straps as tight as they would go, to prevent it from bouncing as he ran.

Three. Two… He took off in front of the gas station, staying close to the storefront in case he had to duck inside or hide behind the ice machine. He was acutely aware of his surroundings. He hoped, not prayed, that each shadow or rumble was not his father’s car.

After all, praying for mercy would be asking wrongly, as he had clearly learned.

The stretch was longer than he remembered. He felt like a human glow stick in his tight white outfit, standing out so brightly. He was relieved to get to the end, but as Stevie rounded the final bend he saw a large sign in the front window of Comic Cool. Oh no—is it a “Be Back in Thirty?”

He didn’t have thirty minutes to spare. He didn’t even have five.

He looked back at the road, and ran along the shrubs. The parking lot seemed empty. Had the owner gone out for a bite? He picked up the pace.

There were no lights on in the shop. Slowly the words became visible. Finally he read: “Out of Business.”

Stevie froze. This wasn’t happening. He raced up to the door and pressed his hands to the glass. The shelves were completely empty.

He pulled on the door, hoping with all his might that it would open, and that he might find a back room filled with Winter Warrior comics.

No luck. The story of his life.

His backpack drooped off his shoulders, down to his elbows. He let it fall to the side and slid down the glass door. He put his elbows on his knees and dropped his face

into his hands. A tear slowly rolled down his face and on to the hot pavement, where it quickly disappeared, leaving behind the faintest scab of white minerals.

He looked up to make sure no one was coming, especially his dad. Who would protect him now? Winter Warrior had been his one ally, the only person who made him feel that he could get through another six or seven years under his dad’s roof. When his dad would lock him in his room or hit him with the belt or make him go to bed without supper, he could take it.

Now without Winter Warrior, he didn’t know if he could.

A sob bubbled out of his throat, and he hated himself for it. Men don’t cry. Crying was for the weak. “For pussies and fags,” according to his dad, but Stevie couldn’t help it. He would have to go home to an empty room tonight. All month he looked forward to taking in each square of Winter Warrior, each detailed full page spread imagined in his mind as it would look in real life. Instead he would go home to a bed, a Bible and a wooden hanger.

He let himself cry, even though he knew his hero wouldn’t be crying right now.

He was more alone than ever before. With Comic Cool closed and empty, it was like Winter Warrior had never even existed in the first place. Like he had always just been a figment of Stevie’s imagination. An imaginary friend.

If Stevie couldn’t get the comic books, then maybe Winter Warrior would think he didn’t care anymore, and would go away and leave him. Without Winter Warrior, he’d die.

But Stevie’s faded and stained shirt proved Winter Warrior was still real. He looked down on Winter Warrior’s muscled body wrapped in fur, standing alone on the tip

of an ice crystal. Stevie was the only one who knew how Winter Warrior was sometimes lonely. Winter Warrior had confided in him before. And he’d never leave Stevie.

Stevie wiped his tears away, telling himself it was okay. He would find a way to get the new issue somehow, even if it meant hitchhiking. He smeared his face into his shoulder, wiping away the tears, and dried his runny nose with a wipe of his sleeve and a few hard sniffles. Where would all those comics have gone?

Ding ding ding! He knew! At least he hoped he knew.

He grabbed his backpack and raced around to the back of the building where the dumpsters were. It was a long shot, but it was a shot.

There he stood. Exposed.

Two small, rusted metal dumpsters were pushed up against the wall, black lids concealing their contents. He opened the first. Empty.

He held his breath and approached the remaining dumpster. “God, please let them be in here.”

He pulled up the lid. Just a giant rusty shoebox. Totally empty.

The glimmer of hope vanished, and suddenly Stevie felt very vulnerable. He had raced around the building with total carelessness. What if he had been spotted? Was this dumb idea really worth it? This little mistake made going home terrifying. It made the whole weekend terrifying. What if on Sunday morning someone at church told his dad they saw Stevie? It was supposed to have been a good weekend, but now it would be covered in fear and gloom. He was so stupid for racing back here! Time to get home. And fast!

He had already been here too long. Each passing second meant more questions when he finally arrived home. He took a few steps back, taking in Comic Cool one last time. He started to turn to run.

And in that moment, he saw something. Something he couldn’t see from his previous vantage point. A small stack of comics, almost completely hidden underneath the second dumpster.

He reached under and pulled out the one on top.

Whoa. Not a comic book. Even more blasphemous than that.

He quickly looked up, terrified once more that he’d been spotted. He panicked and tossed the magazine into his backpack.

Who had seen him? He was sure he’d felt eyes on him. This was bad.

His feelings of sadness were smothered by new ones. Nervousness. Excitement.

And above all, a complete terror so strong that he felt his body tremble like it was suddenly freezing outside. He had put the magazine in his bag so quickly. What was he thinking? He couldn’t actually take it home. It was suicide. And more importantly, it was a sin. A bad one for sure! Way worse than a Winter Warrior comic.

Thessalonians 4:3-5: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.” He knew what that meant.

He had heard kids talking about it in school. “Jerking it,” they called it. He wanted to try it, had considered it plenty of times before, but after the images he had just seen, he suddenly wanted to really bad. After all, he had asked God to let him find the

Winter Warrior comic, but perhaps God wanted him to have this instead. Yeah right!

Wishful thinking. Was this a test? Or was it a sign?

With a sudden deep breath he turned and headed for home. He felt like he had held his breath all the way there, his feelings of danger amplified a thousand times over as he pictured himself trying to casually stroll into the house, knowing he would be scrutinized thoroughly, knowing his secret would show on his face. He had never really understood the expression “burning a hole in your pocket,” but now he did, if you replaced “pocket” with “backpack.”

As he got close to home, he saw his father sitting on the hood of the car in the driveway. Stevie tried to look calm and stroll up to the front door. Just minding his own business after another day of school. Nothing to see here.

“Hey kiddo! Come sit by your ol’ man.” Stevie’s dad gave the hood two hard whacks. Thump! Thump!

Stevie tried to control his breathing, but he was consumed with panic. He thought for a second. “Uh, let me just go put my backpack up.”

“Why? Bring that over here!”

Why? His father had asked, but he clearly already knew. He had seen everything on his way home from work. He was going to toy with Stevie like when he let Stevie keep his Winter Warrior t-shirt, only what he had in his backpack would be infinitely worse.

Stevie felt his face burn furiously. He walked over and looked down at the ground, unable to look his father in the eyes. He took off his backpack and without looking up, he handed it to his father.

He waited, staring at the cement beneath his worn sneakers. It looked rough and mean. He saw an ant carrying a piece of leaf twenty times its size. It reminded him of his father.

Finally it came, but not at all what Stevie expected. “What the heck are you looking at, kiddo? Ain’t you ever seen an ant before?”

Stevie looked up in total shock and found that his father had set the backpack beside him on the car and was patting his other side with his hand. Maybe it would all be okay.

He hopped up beside his dad, still feeling compelled to stare down at his shoes.

“Your clothes are in the basement. You can have ‘em back after dinner.”

Stevie cautiously responded, “Thank you.”

His father grabbed the backpack between both hands and shook it. “That’s a lot of books for a sixth grader!”

Stevie watched in horror as his dad began unzipping the bag. Say something, you idiot! He put on a smile he knew looked fake and tried to speak with all the weak confidence he could muster. “I don’t get straight A’s for nothin’, Dad.” He grabbed the backpack out of his father’s hands. It was a bold move. Too bold, but what did he have to lose?

This made his father laugh. It was a hard heavy laugh. Stevie could see his crooked teeth, and the white saliva crusted in the corners of his mouth. It reminded Stevie of a dirty sink. He zipped up his bag and ran inside, his father’s maniacal laugh bellowing out from behind him.

CHAPTER 2

April 16, 1982 Night Stevie was setting the kitchen table for dinner. His face was still ablaze. Would they be able to tell he had an awful, shameful secret?

He set the last knife down. It was a steak knife, and had a rough serrated edge.

His mom brought in the meatloaf. If Stevie hadn’t been so worried, it would have been great. His mother was an amazing cook. After he had been locked in his room last Sunday, she had made Stevie a huge chocolate chip pancake breakfast on Monday. Her little way of showing she understood. They weren’t too close, but he knew it. She was on his side.

His mother called out, “Supper’s ready!”

His father, who had been watching Nascar, came in and sat down without a word.

That weird talk outside. The way he had waited for Stevie. Did he already know?

Like every night, as soon as they were all together they bowed their heads.

Tonight was his mom’s turn.

“Christ, you are the light which darkness cannot overcome.

Indeed, darkness is not dark to you; For the night is as bright as day.

Christ, be the light which dispels our darkness And restore order to our inner chaos.

Deliver us from the darkness of our self-centered ways;

From greed, envy and ignorance; From unrestrained passions; From the darkness of despair, futility and despondency.”

And from my burning face oh Lord, which shall giveth away my secret!

“Amen.” They all spoke in unison.

Stevie kept his head down. Taking bites he had no appetite for. He could feel his parents’ eyes on him. He was sure they would notice something was wrong. He needed a diversion.

“How is it, Stevie?” his mom asked.

“It’s really good, Mom.” Then it hit him. “But can I grab the Tabasco?”

The perfect plan! An excuse to be red-faced and awkward. Winter Warrior himself couldn’t have thought of that. He would be proud.

“That’s fine, hon.”

Stevie hopped up to go to the cupboard and was stopped dead in his tracks. His father’s hand extended like a fireman’s ladder, grabbing the back of Stevie’s shirt. He felt like a canoe with a battleship’s anchor.

“You don’t like your mother’s cookin’? What’s wrong with you, boy?”

He thought fast and tried to speak as lightly as he could. “Well, if you’re scared of a little Tabasco, I’ll just sit back down.” He couldn’t believe what he had just said.

Another bold move. He never talked back to his father, and barely recognized himself.

Would it work?

The tension on his shirt broke. His dad was smiling. It looked genuine, too. Stevie grabbed the Tabasco and slathered it on his meatloaf. He watched his father do the same.

Together they took their knives and carved off their first piece. His mother watched skeptically.

Stevie felt his stomach churn in anticipation. He was never one for spicy food.

But this bite felt like it might save his life. Surprisingly, it wasn’t bad. It actually tasted good. He looked up at his father, who had also just finished his first bite. He was wearing a peculiar expression. Pride.

Stevie smiled back at his father. It had been a long time since he had felt like this with his dad. Chummy. It made him feel worse than ever about what he was hiding in his room. Then he stared down at his Big Red dribble stain. Pig-pen. The Peanuts character.

He remembered a line from one of the old comic strips: “I haven’t got a name . . . People just call me things . . . Real insulting things.”

Well, maybe Stevie didn’t feel all that guilty, after all. Then it hit him.

Fire. Fire everywhere! Like a mouthful of acid. However red his face had been, it had been white compared to now. But Stevie was tough. His father had taught him to be.

He took small sips of water here and there, trying to give the impression of casual thirst. Every bite tasted the same, of fire, but he had to maintain. Make his father proud.

Finish the meal.

He watched for everyone’s portions to shrink. Bite by bite his did too. And finally, it was time.

“May I be excused and get my clothes?”

His father nodded, and extended his ladder-like arm again, this time patting Stevie’s back. “Good night, kiddo. I ain’t never seen anyone eat so much danged Tabasco! We got ourself a hoss, don’t we?” He winked at Stevie’s mom.

His mother smiled. “G’night, Stevie.”

He walked slowly, casually even, towards the bathroom. He closed the door and let his tongue hang under the faucet for a long while. Soon he’d be up in his room, alone.

Stevie went to the living room and moved the area rug. A hoss? Maybe Stevie was a hoss. He pictured the tight spiral he’d thrown at lunch and was wracked with a renewed wave of guilt.

The guilt disappeared as soon as he opened the trap door. His dad had dumped the clothes straight onto the muddy dirt floor, and now they were crusty and stained. Stevie spent the rest of the evening in the laundry room, scrubbing and soaking and doing load after load of laundry, but the stains wouldn’t come out. The kids at school would never stop laughing at him now.

Eleven-thirty rolled by, then midnight. Stevie lay still, listening, waiting. His stomach still felt queasy, and the cotton sheet felt like damp burlap against his hot, sweaty skin. He told himself it was all that Tabasco, but he knew it wasn’t really. Not any more. It was what was in his backpack. What those people were doing in the magazine.

What looking at the pictures made him want to do.

Sin. His digital clock burned a fierce red. 12:53. 12:54. He could just go get it. Walk across the floor. Tiptoes. Switch on the light. Open his backpack. 12:56. 12:57. Open the magazine. And look. He wanted to think about the pictures, and he didn’t want to think about them. 12:58. 12:59. His dick felt funny. Big and thick, like those guys in the magazine. And burning. Could he do what they were doing? Did he want to? Sin!

1:00. Stevie sat up at the edge of his bed. His heart pounded like a piston, so loud he thought his dad would hear it through the walls.

He’d heard his parents go to bed, the soft murmur of them praying like they always did. Hours ago. They had to be asleep by now. Slowly, he got to his feet. Two big steps to get to the light switch. He squinted his eyes against the dark, and flick! His room looked normal. It felt like it should be an alien place, full of unknown things. He listened hard, straining his ears for any sound from his parents’ bedroom. All clear.

Another two steps back to the bed. He reached under and pulled out his backpack.

“Here goes nothing,” he whispered, and slid out the magazine.

He stared at the cover, taking in every detail, astounded and intrigued. Then he climbed back into bed and fumbled the magazine open.

He flipped through till he found one of the good pages. Geez! Did people really do that with each other? He’d always thought magazines like this were photos of people just, you know, standing there with no clothes on. So you could see everything. Like a science book or something, but with real people.

His hands were shaking really bad, and the pages of the magazine rattled so loud he thought they’d wake his parents. “Wussy,” he whispered to himself. “Chicken.” He flipped to the centerfold, and his mouth dropped open. Bare butts, bare thighs, dicks stuck in places Stevie didn’t even know you could stick them, and so much hair! Curly hair! In places he never pictured it would be.

Stevie felt an urge to reach down, down there, but words tumbled in his head: “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.” It was 1 Cor. 6:18.

Stevie turned another page, and another. What had he brought this home for, then? He was already sinning just looking at it, right? So he might as well… Out in the hallway, he heard a creak. Stevie couldn’t breathe. He’d had a plan. Just in case. What was it? He couldn’t think. Under the pillow! That was it. He shoved the magazine out of sight, lay down and closed his eyes. He tried to breathe like he was asleep, but he felt like he was panting. All he could see was curved naked body parts and taut muscles, like the circles you see against your eyelids after somebody turns out the light.

Minutes passed. Nothing. He looked at the clock. 1:45 am. Just the house settling.

He decided to wait five more minutes just to be sure, and while he waited he remembered asking wrongly when he prayed that his t-shirt not be discovered. Right and wrong seemed so blurry. What was the harm of a comic book? It was no worse than Nascar, or the Terminator movie his dad always watched.

He thought about the poor. Praying for them would be right, wouldn’t it? Surely it would be better to ask God to feed the hungry than to ask that his secrets were kept safe.

He kept coming back to this in his mind. Poor people prayed too, didn’t they?

Stevie couldn’t quite grasp how anything would actually get better for them from his prayers, especially if they were already praying. How many times had he prayed for his mom when his dad would hit her? Surely that was prayed right. But it hadn’t changed anything.

The magazine seemed to burn through his pillow, making his cheeks hot. He wanted with all his heart to disbelieve in all the scripture he knew so well. He recalled verses with rape, slaughter, and sacrifice. Deuteronomy 20:10-14. It had always bothered him, but tonight it helped him decide.

“As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.”

He sat up and pulled the magazine back out. Maybe this was his plunder.

Fear and excitement engulfed him all over again. He felt almost delirious. Now, at almost two am, he was safe. No more guilt. He would enjoy his spoils. He found the centerfold once more, and slowly reached into his boxer shorts.

The door to his bedroom banged open, and Stevie’s father burst from the darkened hallway into the lighted doorway like a bright demon painted on black canvas.

Instinctively, Stevie pulled his hand out of his pants and tried to toss the magazine to the side of the bed. His heart banged in his chest, and for the briefest moment everything went white.

His father roared, “What the hell are you doing up at this…” His voice faded, and his expression morphed into something new. Something dangerous.

“Stevie?” His father’s jaw locked with rage, like a malevolent ventriloquist.

“What the fuck is that? What’d I tell you about those fucking goddamned comic books?”

He stormed over to the bed and reached out, his hand shaking with anger. The shadows from the overhead light made his face dance with evil.

“Hand me that comic book,” his father demanded. Stevie picked up the magazine.

It had fallen face down, and he handed it to his father with trembling hands. He felt like he might vomit, and swallowed hard.

“You’re in some shit now, boy. Every fucking…” His father flipped the magazine over, and his voice trailed off.

There was total silence. Nobody moved. A wild flush of red raged up his father’s face, and Stevie thought his dad was going to have a stroke and die right there. His father’s expression changed to hatred. Hatred and disgust. In a strained, sinister whisper, his father said, “Put your goddamned pants on, blasphemer!” Stevie was frozen. “I said, Put your God…Damned… Pants. ON!” The words thundered in his ears like the wrath of God. Stevie felt his bladder release.

He stood up slowly, pulling the covers around his waist. What if his dad saw that he’d peed? What if—oh God—what if his dad thought it wasn’t pee, but something else?

The room started to go white again, with little dots floating in the air.

“Your pants, Stevie!”

Slowly Stevie let the covers drop, revealing his pee-soaked boxers.

“What the fuck?” There was a silence. “That’s fucking sick! You really are a big fucking pussy, aren’t you?”

Silence.

“You answer me!” he screamed, as Stevie was trying to decide whether to acknowledge his father in his pee-soaked boxers, or to hurry into his pants.

“Yes sir,” he whispered.

Before Stevie could get to a pair of pants, he felt his father’s hand clamp down onto his neck with a stunning force, pushing his head forward at an unnatural and painful angle. Stevie was marched down the corridor to the living room.

He was so ashamed he tried to will himself out of his body. He pictured himself as the leaf in the ant’s grasp, tossed around effortlessly between pincers so strong they could lift 100 times their own weight. That thought simply scared him more.

His father kicked over the old rug, revealing the heavy wooden door that led to the basement.

“Open the door, blasphemer!” Spittle flew from his father’s mouth as he yelled.

Stevie didn’t protest. He couldn’t even speak. Still in his father’s unrelenting grip, Stevie bent down, unlatched the door, and pulled it into an upright position before standing back up.

His father’s voice turned into a whisper. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.”

He shook Stevie with all his strength. As he flew violently from side to side, Stevie said automatically, “P-ro-ver-bs Tw-eny-three, rough, f-teen”.

Like the words had been the magic password, the pincers were abruptly removed.

Dizzy, Stevie stood reeling for a moment, but before he could reach up to rub his tender neck, he felt a fierce kick to the back of his legs. With a loud thud, his kneecaps smashed into the hardwood floor. It felt like his knees had funny bones with screwdrivers stabbing through them. He knelt before the precipice of the basement stairs, wishing he didn’t know what was next.

A slow crawl down the stairs. The door slamming shut behind him, thud! It’d happened once before, only Stevie had been on the outside watching it. He had seen his mother make the dark descent.

He waited for the words to begin his crawl.

Instead, he felt his father’s heel find its home right between his shoulder blades.

For a moment he felt weightless, the light from the basement opening flying every which way. Loud thuds punctuated the dancing light, and Stevie realized that he was tumbling down the hard wooden stairs.

He heard an ear-piercing crack as he hit the muddy basement floor. Like a ruler breaking in two. My back! he thought in terror. He struggled to inhale, but he couldn’t breathe.

He raised his arms to sit up. Backlit in the faint light trickling in from above, he saw that his right forearm bent away from him, the bone pushing his skin outward. It looked like a second elbow. He felt sweat run down his face, and a fresh wave of nausea rolled over him.

Looking up towards the square of light, he saw his father’s form hulking in the middle of it. He scowled. Stevie held his arm up. His dad had to see he was really hurt.

He’d been punished. His dad’s jaw worked, and he cleared his throat with a hawking noise. Stevie waited. A second later, a giant wad of phlegm came hurtling down towards him. Before it even reached him, the door slammed shut and the basement went black.

His father’s spit rained down as Stevie heard the latch click shut. He was locked in.

Even in his state of shock, he was acutely aware of the cool mud he sat in, the smell of mildew thick in the air, and the complete and inescapable darkness. He blinked

hard, hoping that his eyes would quickly adjust so that he might find at least a small sliver of light. Something to hold onto.

As he looked around in the darkness, he could feel the blood filling his swelling arm, throbbing to his heartbeat. He became aware of a dull ache in his cheek that radiated around his eye. He must have injured it in the fall.

With his left hand, Stevie gingerly touched his eye. The slight touch sent a shot of pain down his spine to the bottom of his foot. His vision filled with flashes of bright light that began dancing around the room. Each flash grew stronger as he felt blood coursing through his veins. It was as though they danced to the rhythm of his heart.

He became faintly aware of an argument taking place above him. As the voices rose to a shout, the flashes of light morphed into a kaleidoscope of hyper-bright sparks.

“Let him out!” his mother pleaded. Sparks as bright as the sun began to grow in the confined space. Almost imperceptibly they expanded, spreading out like ink in water, subtly yet constantly changing in direction and amplitude. He watched in dazed amazement.

His daze was broken by a scream from his mother, followed by his father’s booming voice. “Shut the fuck up, woman!” Then came a loud thud that could only be his mother hitting the floor.

Instinctively, Stevie sat up and wobbled to his feet, wanting to climb up and protect his mother. Disoriented, he staggered through an endless field of sparks that spread out over impossible distances, giving the room an infinite scope. He took a step forward and another stab of pain rocked through him, sending him stumbling to the floor

once again, this time face down in the mud. Light still sparkled at the periphery of his vision.

He could hear his mother grabbing at the basement door latch, desperate to free Stevie. Then came a loud slapping noise, another thud, and a kind of half moan, half sob that Stevie had never heard before. The muted voice of his father seeped down into the room. “A shameless woman shall be counted as a dog; but she that is shamefaced will fear the Lord.”

Ecclesiastics 26:25, Stevie thought, as another loud thud silenced his mother.

Stevie raised his head out of the mud to cry out to her, but all he could manage was a thick, pitiful wuh sound. Something was wrong with him. Really wrong, but that didn’t matter right now. His mother needed him.

He tried to clear the fog that seemed to fill the room. He pretended the lights around him were stars on a clear night. He focused on the word ‘mom,’ and lifted his head back out of the muck, but only that pitiful sound came out.

He lay helplessly, unable to fight the sleepiness that curled around him. His face fell back into the mud, and he began to drift off in a void of exploding stars.

“You have to roll over, Stevie.” A faint voice. A familiar voice.“You are the only one who can do this. You’ll drown like this.”

Though Stevie had never before physically heard the voice, he recognized it. He had heard it a million times in his head. It was Winter Warrior. A panic awoke Stevie from his stupor.

Air. He had run out of it. He was drowning in an inch of starry mud. He struggled to lift his head up out of the muck, but he couldn’t.

Air. The thought consumed him. Panic in full swing, he told his good arm to push, but it wouldn’t respond. He could see the sparks were dimming.

“Push, Stevie! For your life, PUSH!” A surge of adrenaline made his heart race, and he managed to move his broken arm.

Pushing off his damaged forearm, he heard an unnerving crunching as the frayed ends of his bone met one another. In his mind he screamed out with pain, but his body remained silent. With one final push his head rose from the mud.

He gasped in air, and as he did the sparks burst back to full brightness. The gritty mud in his eyes did little to stop them. His arm shook, threatening to give out, sending Stevie back into the mud.

“You’re almost there. One more push, Stevie! C’mon!”

Stevie did as Winter Warrior demanded, and with all his might he pushed further still and finally made it to his side, before tipping over onto his back.

Mom! Again he tried to call out to his mother. He had to know if she was okay.

The final blow from his father had clearly knocked her out, but had she gotten up? Was she unconscious? Or worse?

Stevie’s mouth was caked with mud that reminded him of a sewer. He could feel the grit filing away at his teeth.

His mother needed his help. He needed to cry out to let her know he was coming.

He pushed mud out of his mouth with his tongue.

Mom! He futilely tried to call out again, this time for comfort.

His eye was an inextinguishable flame, and he reached up to it with his broken but only functional arm, instinctively hoping to cover the pain. He felt a large swell below his muddy eye, with a flow pouring from it. Blood. But all he could think about was his mother. Wondering if she was alive. Wondering how she would ever forgive him for causing her such pain.

He pictured his mother on the hardwood floor above, unconscious. She had to be.

Or else she would have rescued him, like he was unable to do for her. That was their bond. Now she was dying. The guilt devoured him until his body began to shut down once again.

Winter Warrior’s voice returned, only this time it was distant, hollow. “Stay awake, Stevie. She might still be alive. She needs you. Stay awake, Stevie…”

But he couldn’t. The sparks around him were too soothing. The pain was becoming a distant sensation, separate from himself, floating around in the void near him.

Just before he passed out, a warm drop hit his forehead, and he knew. It was his mother’s blood falling through the floorboards. His mother was dead.

And it was this thought that he carried into his dreams.

CHAPTER 3

April 16, 1982 Eternal Night Stevie awoke to find the lightshow had ended. In its place was complete darkness.

His entire body throbbed with a pain that stole his breath with every beat of his heart.

How long had he been out? In the blackness, there was no way to tell. His first instinct was to cry out. But as the realization of what had just taken place began to reform in his mind, he decided against it. His mother was dead. He had felt her warm blood drip down onto him, and hollering to her killer would be suicide.

The thought of his mother’s corpse lying just above him sent chills down his muddy spine. But what if she’s not dead yet? his inner conscience said.

Think like Winter Warrior. In a situation like this, his hero would assess the damage, formulate a plan, then execute the plan.

“Stay calm,” he whispered to himself. Good. He could talk again.

Still on his back, he raised his hand to his grimy face to explore his eye, now swollen shut. He gently rubbed the large lump underneath, which had ruptured before he passed out. He vaguely remembered feeling the blood pouring out before slipping into unconsciousness, but now the blood was a rubbery thick mess on his face, hard in places where it had mixed with mud before drying. It hurt, but not as bad as he would have expected.

Last on his checklist was his right arm, but he already knew that any exploration of it was futile. His earlier memory had been crystal clear. A backlit forearm, folded in an

unnatural way, shielding him from his father’s spit. It was better aligned now, probably from his push out of the mud, but it was still totally messed… Yeah, it was best to ignore it.

Keeping his broken arm as still as possible, he slowly sat up in the hollow, moist room. He was lightheaded, and in the disorientation of the darkness he felt his body sway pendulously from side to side. The back of his t-shirt was wet and mud-caked. For now, at least, he wasn’t too cold. But he was thirsty. That would have to wait too.

In the darkness, he became aware of a scurrying sound. Mice? Rats? Something.

He shook off the thought. Without sight, all other senses became amplified, as did imagination. Best ignore everything.

One thing though, was beyond ignoring. The drip.

Every so often it came. Sporadic. Unpredictable. Unrelenting. He knew what it was. The same drip that had landed on him earlier. Blood.

“Formulate a plan.” His lips moved as he thought the words. “Use your damage assessment to make sure you can execute it.”

First, climb the stairs to test the lock. If he couldn’t force the door open himself, he would have to pry or hammer his way out using whatever he could find, and he’d have to be able to do it one-handed. That would mean searching the dark basement for anything that might be of use.

Winter Warrior would probably have a better plan: grab a pipe, freeze it solid so he could break off a chunk to use as a battering ram on the door. But of course Winter Warrior had big muscles and two good arms. And superpowers. Stevie was scrawny. Just

a twelve-year-old sixth grader who weighed seventy pounds with tennis shoes on after a big meal. His plan would have to suffice.

He reached his arm out, feeling first for a wall, then for anything that might be on the ground around him. Nothing but dirt and mud.

He scooted himself upward onto his knees, and winced as a sharp pain quickly reminded him that he had missed a check on his damage assessment. Moving around on his knees would be impossible, so he leaned back onto his butt and pulled his legs into a pretzel, Indian style. Shifting his weight, he scooted forward a couple feet and repeated his arm sweep. Nothing but muddy floor.

Little by little he covered ground, trying to formulate a map in his mind. Soon he reached the foot of the stairs, and with just a few touches of the bottom step, he was finally able to gain perspective. The dark world around him shuffled into place like the last turn of a Rubik’s cube.

He now moved with more confidence around the small space, feeling for any tools that he might use to open the door. Close by, he heard a faint sniffling sound. He scooted towards it.

Cautiously, he reached out into the dark space before him. His hand came down on something large and furry. Stevie retracted his hand with a gasp, instinctively scrunching his eyes tightly closed, and the rat let out a shrill squeak. A second later the squeak became squeaks, and he heard them scurry off in all directions.

There must have been one or two dozen, but in his blindness it felt like hundreds.

Why had they gathered in that spot? Stevie tried to visualize himself in the small space as

the answer crept towards him. Where had his mother hit the floor above him? His gut told him she must have been right about where he was now.

He moved his hand slowly, hesitantly, along the ground, and felt it sink into a thick, metallic-smelling pool. Stevie went still all over. The rats had been feasting on his mother’s blood.

A wave of nausea hit him, and a retching belch that smelled of Tabasco seared his raw throat. With this much blood loss, she had to be dead.

His wet shirt felt cooler now, and Stevie began to shiver.

“Follow your plan, Stevie.” It was Winter Warrior. He was back! He would guide Stevie!

Get a grip, Stevie thought. Winter Warrior was just a figment of his imagination.

A reflection of his hopes. He did a 90-degree turn away from the puddle, doing his best to block the memory of what he had just experienced.

“Always look ahead. Now, proceed with the search mission.”

After what seemed like forever, Stevie had collected nothing but an empty gallon jug and a dry, mud-caked towel that seemed to crunch when he moved it. He left them in a dry corner of the basement. Easy to find.

He had used much of his fading energy for his tool-finding mission, and now regretted it. It was going to take everything he had in him to climb the stairs and break open the door. But he had no other choice.

He closed his eyes in concentration, visualizing where the stairs were, and set off in that direction. He managed to get his butt on the first stair, then inched up backwards, using his good arm to push himself. The higher he climbed, the more faint he felt. It

seemed like Everest on a new moon climb. Each stair took with it 1,000 feet of breathable atmosphere. And in the darkness, there was no end in sight.

Tempted to take a break, he thought of his bleeding mother and pushed on until his head struck the wooden trap door. The blow reignited the flames from the embers of his eye. He held his face in his hands, struggling to breathe, and rocked back and forth.

“Don’t fall, Stevie. It’ll pass.”

He held on to Winter Warrior’s words, and sure enough the pain slowly became manageable. He let himself hope. He had made it to the door. But could he open it?

Stevie swallowed anxiously, only to realize how thirsty he had become. If baby powder tasted like dirt, he felt like he’d just eaten a bucket of it. He’d give anything for a cold Big Red! As soon as he thought the words, he imagined the pool of blood somewhere beneath him. In his imagination he saw color, and surrounding the puddle were thousands of crimson rat tracks. He shuddered.

He pushed on the wooden door. It was solid, held tight by the lock on the other side. He tried to get his legs under him, but his knees were too damaged to allow for a substantial push. He began breathing harder, the room squeezing in on him.

He realized he was shivering. Panic made him want to pound on the door, but he knew who would answer. Instead, he laid his hand on the ceiling next to the door and spoke.

“Mom.” He began to cry. “I’m so sorry.”

The world spun away, and Stevie drifted off into the abyss.

He was awakened by the sound of his teeth chattering. God, it was so cold.

He was shivering hard. Too hard. He was dizzy, and suddenly feared another tumble down the steep hard staircase. He reached his hand back to the ceiling. “I have to go back down, Mom, I’m too cold, but there’s a towel down there I can cover up with.”

Above his hand he could feel the ceiling had grown wet. He must have been directly below his dead mother. Her blood was saturating the wood floor below her. He hadn’t heard the dripping sound in a long while, which meant she had just about bled out.

Stevie shuddered. “I’ll be back soon, Mom.” Even in the blackness he could feel the room spinning. His head began to ache and his thoughts were consumed with one thing. Water.

Somehow he found himself back in the corner of the room, shivering yet sweating. Had he dreamt his climb? His ailing knees seemed to say no, but he didn’t remember coming back down. Had he passed out again? Had Winter Warrior carried him down? Time seemed eternal.

His mouth was so dry that he could feel the texture of his taste buds on the roof of his mouth. He realized that he was covered in the towel, which instantly reminded him of the jug.

He felt around for it and grabbed it by the handle. It was light, almost weightless.

Empty. He shook it to make sure, then growled as he threw it into the black void. He heard it bounce around as it landed, but in his mind, it simply sailed away into infinity like an astronaut on a space walk whose tether had been severed.

It was cold, too, like outer space. Only there were no stars by which to gain his bearings. He wrapped the crunchy towel tighter around him and leaned into the wall. He felt his eyelids closing, and he hoped against all hope that his dreams would be of warmth, light and water. His dizziness sent him spinning end over end back into a deep sleep.

Stevie awoke to a sharp pain in his swollen cheek. He felt naily paws on his face and upper chest. There was a rat on him! Its teeth tore into his bloody cheek, razor sharp.

In a panic he tried to sweep it off him, but he seemed paralyzed. The rat gnawed into his flesh. He tried to scream, to scare it away, but all that came out was a pathetic dry gargle.

Then the other rats came. He could feel them on him, climbing the towel, climbing his broken arm. His heart raced so fast, he wondered if it would give out. The first rat chewed on his bloody face. He imagined it biting into his eyeball.

“Move, Stevie! Move!” cried Winter Warrior, from deep within the darkness.

Stevie tried to visualize his body moving. With all his might he pushed to one side. He felt himself twitch.

Another agonizing bite was torn from his cheek. Panicked, he pushed harder. Get them off me! he screamed in his mind. Oh, God, get them off! His body began to slide off the wall, towards his broken arm. The thought of landing on it was almost unbearable, but he had to get under the towel, get the rats off his face before they ate him alive as he sat paralyzed.

His body inched itself over. Slowly at first, then accelerating until he finally hit the floor.

A bright flash of white filled his vision as he landed on his fragile arm. He heard the rats scurry off. He lay sweating and shaking, the broken bones grinding together with every tremor. Relief washed over him despite the pain.

Gradually, he became aware of a putrid smell, thick and choking in the frigid air.

His teeth began to chatter, and he could tell that the towel he had used for warmth was mostly on the floor now. He was exposed, and it was so cold. Too cold.

Then suddenly Winter Warrior’s voice boomed off the invisible walls. “When it’s cold, you cannot fold. The minds of mortal men are the same as the gods, but it is the lack of will that distinguishes the two.”

Stevie couldn’t speak aloud, but he answered in his mind. “I have to fold. I don’t want to live anymore. I want to die.”

Winter Warrior urged him to fight. “We are a team, Stevie. A perfect pair. How many nights have you and I battled? In how many issues have you been the one guiding me? Now it’s my turn, Stevie. You have got to hang on. Do you understand me? You have to!”

“But it’s so cold. And I’m so thirsty. And do you know what that smell is?” His inner voice rose with alarm.

“No, Stevie, it’s too dark for me to see.”

“It’s my mom. She’s rotting! And now it’s my turn! The rats will come back, and I can’t even move!”

“But you have to, Stevie, for me.”

“Why?” “Because I love you.”

The unfamiliar words found their way directly to Stevie’s heart, piercing it with despair. “But I can’t get out. I can’t even get up the stairs. I’m dying of thirst. What do you want me to do? What can I do?”

Winter Warrior’s voice was a soft whisper. “But you already know.”

He thought about this as his eyes began to close again. He did know. His body was shutting down, and he allowed himself to explore his last option. The thought had begun to take shape earlier, but his mind was only now ready for it. He needed to drink.

He couldn’t drink the mud, but there was one liquid puddle. He finally realized his salvation. His mother’s blood.

Stevie opened his mouth to speak to his mom, and was surprised that his voice worked. “I’m sorry, mom. Sorry I did this to you, and sorry for what I have to do.”

His words came out cracked from his desiccated mouth. He willed his body to move, and little by little it did. As he curled forward, his body fell off of his broken arm.

He knew it should have hurt, but now he didn’t seem to feel any pain at all. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even cold. He was actually feeling warm. If he hadn’t been so thirsty, he thought he could lie there and sleep forever. But thirst was a powerful motivator.

He inched forward on his stomach. Every putrid breath made him want to gag. He tried not to remember that the only person who ever cared about him was decomposing on the other side of the basement door. Seeping her way into the wood, soaking it with

rot, which threatened to break open and dump his mother’s body on top of him. Could he escape through the opening if it did?

“Fight, Stevie. Warriors fight alone. And you! You are a warrior now!”

Winter Warrior’s words struck a nerve. A lone warrior. Stevie used all his strength to push himself up into a crawling position.

His hand and knees squished into the thick mud, until finally Stevie was at the puddle. The smell of metal mixed with the smell of decay, creating an olfactory slaughterhouse that made him dry heave. He knelt before his mother’s blood, and thought for a moment of the rats that had acquired a taste for human blood by drinking it. Would Stevie?

He tried to push it all away. The odor, the memories, the pain. This was his only chance of survival.

Winter Warrior’s calming voice counted out reassuringly. “One…two…” Stevie breathed in. “Three.”

Stevie pushed his face into the wetness, and attempted to drink.

The puddle was too viscous to swallow. It simply filled his mouth with mud that tasted of pennies.

The realization that he would soon be dead came as a sweet relief.

He spoke his last words through a bloodstained, muddy mouth. “Goodbye, Mom.” Without pain and surrounded in a blanket of warmth, he felt a great sleepiness wash over him, one that felt final. He would sink his face into the mud and be dead within a minute, certain that his next stop was down.

Then, like a bullet, a beam of light pierced through the darkness. He craned his neck toward the source, squinting in astonishment. An angelic figure stood at the top of the stairs. His mother. Waiting to carry him off to Heaven. Even after the magazine, he had made it!

As Stevie’s eyes adjusted to the blinding light he could see his mother’s face, wet with tears and filled with shame. This was no angel. His mother was alive!

With a strength born out of pure joy, Stevie began crawling on his injured knees and one good arm, ignoring the pain and dizziness. Focused only on the light ahead of him, he followed the hope that was his mother. The hope that this wasn’t a dream, or a mirage.

The wooden stairs seemed impossibly tall and elongated before his eyes. Still he climbed, one small motion at a time. As he ascended, a deep confusion crept into Stevie’s head. His mother wasn’t alive. He had drunk her blood. He could still taste it in his mouth. It was a trick.

He squinted his eyes as the horror unfolded. His mother looked furry. Her eyes were beady and red. Rats!

Hundreds of rats huddled together in the opening, forming the shape of his mother. They worked in unison to create the illusion, layering themselves to carefully match the colors of his mother’s corpse which lay somewhere nearby.

Stevie stopped dead just two stairs below the figure, paralyzed with fear. These were no ordinary rats. This was the devil. He had come for Stevie.

He watched the figure’s hands reach out towards him. He felt the touch of a claw, and with it, a faint sobbing. His mother’s cry. Not the devil.

Somehow he was at the top of the steps. And crying. His mother cradled him in her arms. His father’s voice boomed from the kitchen, startling Stevie out of his delirium.

“Stop your fucking whining or you’re going back in.” Stevie did stop crying, and suddenly found himself in the car.

He was grateful to be safe and alone with his mother, but something felt wrong.

Everything was blurry. The trees were blobs of green that whizzed by. The clouds in the sky were amorphous, sinister blobs of white. The world that had been clear and in focus was different now. Life was different now. He wasn’t thirsty, or hungry. He wasn’t mad, or even sad. He just was. And though the world blurring all around him made him nauseous, he couldn’t get himself to close his eyes for fear that the darkness might enclose him forever.

He was vaguely aware that the car had come to a halt when his mother finally spoke. “Listen to me, Stevie. Your father and I went to Aunt Nancy’s cabin for the weekend. You were supposed to go to Grandmaw’s after school, but instead you came home and accidently locked yourself in the basement.”

Stevie’s head lolled towards the sound of his mother’s voice. He watched the tan dashboard begin to crawl.

“Understood?”

His eyes moved toward her voice, but he couldn’t seem to find her mouth. What was she talking about? He was too tired to concentrate.

“Understood?” She sounded different.

He nodded faintly. His mother came into focus. It took Stevie a minute to realize what was wrong. His mother was wearing her work clothes, but it was Saturday morning.

Stevie tried to speak through the fog in his mind. “Whuder you wear…” The sentence wouldn’t come. He squinted his eyes and tried again. “What day isi?”

Her face fell and her jaw blurred. “Tuesday.” Stevie had been in the basement for three days.

CHAPTER 4

Stevie stood in his living room, staring at the rug that covered the basement hatch.

The overhead light was on, but the brown carpet and purplish drapes seemed to devour its light. He still wasn’t allowed to go to school, and he missed the bright lights and open space. Being stuck here in the house, all alone while his parents were at work, made him feel like the dark was closing in on him.

He chose to focus on the mission before him.

In his left hand he had a flashlight, with a fresh pair of batteries in his pocket. His right arm, enclosed in a glow-in-the-dark cast, held a bottle of water. Just in case.

His most recent batch of Tylenol hadn’t kicked in yet, but he only had a minor headache. Over the last week, the headaches had got better with each passing day.

The ophthalmologist had promised they would. “Trauma and infection,” he had said. “Your vision will never be perfect again, but these should help.” He had held out the geekiest pair of glasses Stevie had ever seen. Thick as the Penguin Man’s. He still wasn’t sure if the headaches were caused by the new lenses, or by the depressing hideousness of the frames.

The hospital doctor had fitted him with two shiny metal knee braces, and had given him a choice of casts. The ophthalmologist, however, made his parents pick out the frames. His dad chose the cheapest, dorkiest ones, just what he needed to re-enter school after his week of cut-offs and Winter Warrior. He missed the bright lights of school, but he sure didn’t miss that.

For the first few hours Stevie had flipped the glasses up, revealing a blurry world in one of his eyes, then back down to watch it fall into focus. After the first headache set in, he stopped doing that.

He pushed his mind back to the subject at hand.

You can do this, he thought, and forced himself to kick over the rug, sending dust particles swirling up through the already stale air. He flicked on the flashlight, unlocked the hatch and pulled it open.

The smell of damp earth wafted up to him. Was that wet dirt? Or was it blood? He thought he could smell iron. But that didn’t make any sense. Unless, maybe, it was his own blood.

He held the flashlight firmly, shining the beam down into the basement, looking for clues to what had happened. Stevie had told the doctor about the rats. The doctor had simply patted Stevie’s head, smiled, and told him all about “optical migraines.” Then he told him it was “eggs or baited” by head trauma.

When Stevie pressed again, the answer changed. “A common side effect of high fever is hallucinations, which is eggs or baited by severe infection.”

So which one was it? Optical migraine, or high fever? Had the doctor been dodging the question? It was time to find out. Sure, there were no bite marks on Stevie’s face, but hadn’t the rat taken a bite out of the hole already in his cheek? The one that was now sealed up behind ten dark stitches?

His flashlight carved a temporary path through the dark basement. Was there a rat down there with a piece of Stevie digesting in its stomach?

He opened his eyes as far as he could and adjusted the beam of his flashlight to ‘wide,’ hoping to create as much light in the space as possible. He began his descent.

He took one step at a time, remembering the sparks of light, seeing for himself that they weren’t real. He took another step, and his left knee brace clipped the edge of the narrow opening. For a moment Stevie was off balance, falling forward once again into the darkened space. He instantly let go of his flashlight and grabbed onto the lip of the opening, barely catching himself just as the flashlight finished its violent tumble down the stairs.

Had he looked like that when he’d fallen? He was thankful that the flashlight had stayed on, but half its light had vanished. He cursed his knee braces. He felt like the tin man, but he couldn’t walk on his fractured kneecaps without them.

Make it quick, he thought, and started once again down the wooden stairs. As his head passed the threshold he looked up at the spot where he’d felt the blood saturate, but it was shrouded in darkness. He didn’t want to touch it, for fear that he might come away with a blood-smeared hand. He knew his mother was alive. At least she appeared to be.

He would take a look with the flashlight on his way back up. That way there would be no mistake.

As he proceeded downwards, he hoped with all his might that this wasn’t another nightmare. His hospital stay was filled with ones that began just like this. He hoped, but did not pray. He realized, looking back, that while he’d been trapped in the darkness, he hadn’t prayed even a single prayer. He had been too ashamed. And yet, in the end he was saved anyway. The ironic thing was that Stevie had wanted to die. Had welcomed it.

Prayer, it seemed, didn’t change outcomes.

His first shoe gingerly touched down onto the dampened earth, followed by the second. He remembered the texture of the soil in his mouth and beneath his eyelids. He felt a twinge of sympathy for the bottom of his kicks. Sorry, guys.

After a few steps he retrieved his flashlight. With the light from above and the time his eyes had to adjust, he realized that he could see the room quite clearly. With the aid of his Coke-bottle glasses, everything was in focus.

And it wasn’t so scary. Of course, there was no way he would turn off the flashlight, and he’d be back up in no more than a minute if he had to, but the room was innocuous.

In the far left-hand corner he saw the brown towel, hardened into shape from the mud. That stone of fabric had been his blanket just two weeks ago.

Towards the back of the room, under the stairs, was the plastic jug. He had been so desperate for it to be full, but now he was repulsed. The inside of the container was a milky green.

He walked over to it, focusing the beam on its label. “Whole Milk,” it said. He picked it up with a little laugh and gave it a tiny squeeze. His laughter stopped dead as the smell of his decomposing mother poured into his nostrils.

“Ughhhhh!” He pulled his cast up to his nose. The stench had claws, burrowing into Stevie’s lungs. He threw the jug as he had done before. But this time he had the satisfaction of seeing it land. Things were starting to make sense.

Kneeling down, he swept the flashlight beam across the ever-brightening room, searching the shadows. And there it was, a tiny red circle. “Ha!”

He hadn’t heard the lid pop off when he’d first thrown the jug on that thirsty night, but he had smelled the buildup of stench that it had bottled.

With this, his fear ebbed further. It was all making sense now. The optical migraines, the fever and hallucinations. The itching of the old towel and the mud on his skin causing the imagined rats. It was all fake.

He shined the light towards the ceiling. “See!” he said aloud. “All fake!”

The flashlight beam revealed a rusty overhead pipe with a ninety-degree elbow joint. From it, a small clear drop trembled precariously, ready to plummet down to the small puddle below.

The smell of blood had just been rust. The room looked brighter now than ever before, and the last of Stevie’s fear subsided. His knee braces clicked together as he walked over to the puddle. Just water. Not blood. And then he looked down in the mud surrounding it.

All around him were thousands and thousands of tiny tracks. Some of the claw prints glistened, filled with water, but the ones that Stevie was staring at were filled with dark splotches of dried blood.

Stevie’s hand flew to his cheek, reliving the pain of his flesh being eaten. The rats had eaten his mom. That was where they acquired their taste for human flesh. So, who had taken him to the hospital that day?

He dropped the flashlight and stumbled backwards toward the staircase, falling over into the mud. He felt eyes on him from every crack in the wall. He could sense the hunger, the thirst for blood. He had once had it too.

His knee braces were anchors in the mud as he scooted towards the steps. He raced up the steps on all fours, braces clicking against the treads. He left the flashlight behind.

Stevie crawled out into the yellow light of the living room and kicked the trap door closed. He lay on the floor, staring into the light bulb. Please don’t go out.

He’d forgotten to look for blood on the way up, but he knew. It was there.

Stevie heard his father’s car pull into the driveway. It backfired with a loud pop, and he jumped. Stevie looked down at his pants and knee braces. They were caked with mud and rat hair. He couldn’t tell anyone about this. They couldn’t know he knew their secret.

He pushed himself up and ran to the bathroom, closing the door just as he heard his father enter. He cleaned himself off, leaving no trace of his trip to the cellar. He stepped out to find both his mother and his father at the kitchen table, laughing demonically at something. They noticed him enter the room and turned to face him. Their eyes were small, black, and beady.

His father said, “Steeeeeeve,” through a look of disgust, and for the first time, Stevie saw his mother do the same. “Hi, Steeeeve,” she spat, with hate on her tongue. But Steve saw right through it. Saw them for exactly what they were.

Sacks of skin filled with rats. His father had been for many years, his mother only just recently.

PART 2: JASON BOYD

CHAPTER 5

Present Day Steve was just returning to his office at Storm Head Food Supply after his lunch break. He walked down the long hallway past the sales guys’ cubicles. A bunch of them were huddled up, laughing over something they were watching on the Internet in Mike Holmes’s cubicle. Holmsie, they called him, except Steve didn’t. The one time he’d tried, the guy had looked at him like he was from Mars.

As Steve got to his office door, Holmsie shouted out, “Hey!” Steve turned around. “Yes?” “Sorry, not you, man.” He nodded towards Kent, the HR director, who was coming down the hall to the right. “Kent, dude, you’ve got to see this!”

Steve stepped into his office and closed his door, but it didn’t shut out the noise outside. “Hooters tonight for happy hour. I got first round—signed a big one today!

Who’s in?”

He heard Kent answer. “I’ll have to check with the ol’ ball-n-chain, but heck yeah.”

Ball and chain? Steve would never have called his wife that. He wouldn’t have to ask Susan if he could go out, either. Not that he was ever invited, but sometimes it would be nice to mingle with co-workers. To have a buddy. Someone to shoot the shit with.

Someone other than just Susan. It felt like college all over again.

He pictured a Hooters waitress talking to the bar host. “The Bud Lights are for the hot group of guys. The Guiness is for their friend in the glasses.”

No one went out for drinks with the company accountant. That’s why Steve had found his own bar. A quiet little hole in the wall called TJ’s Tavern, where he had a beer or two each day after work.

He sat down at his large glass-topped mahogany desk. His office was bare and utilitarian, except for the photos of him and Susan in various countries that lined three walls. The fourth wall held his bachelor’s and master’s diplomas, as well as various accounting certifications. He checked his watch. Four more hours till TJ’s.

He plugged his laptop into the dock. As it booted up, he stared at the snow globe on his desk. It was a rare find—Winter Warrior, forbearing and beautiful, surrounded by ice crystals, with snow swirling around him. Susan had given it to him as a wedding present, nearly eight years ago. Steve saw a part of himself in that icy globe. In this office, Steve was the Tax Warrior. Susan had come up with that. He smiled.

He heard the little Microsoft jingle, and his computer monitor blinked on. He was just starting on a spreadsheet when he heard a loud scrape on the door. What the hell?

He ignored it and went back to his calculations. A single sharp bang almost knocked the door off its hinges.

Jesus Christ. “Come in!”

When no one entered, he got up and opened his office door. Before him stood a tall, strikingly handsome man in his early thirties, with broad shoulders and a chiseled face. He had dark hair, blue eyes, and a tan that was probably fake. His charcoal-gray, perfectly fitted designer suit and sardonically tilted eyebrow seemed to scream, I’m better

than you, you accountant pussy! But he spoke in a casual voice. “The name’s Boyd.

Jason Boyd.” A smirk appeared on his smooth fake-tan face, creating a touch of smile lines that broke the action figure illusion.

Oh great. James fuckin’ Bond? Probably some shmuck Sales Associate making the rounds on his first day. “My name’s Steve Jones.”

Jason’s smirk disappeared, and his brows drew together a little. He looked straight into Steve’s eyes and said, “Well, yeah,” tapping the nameplate on Steve’s office door without ever breaking eye contact.

Boyd’s stare bore down on him with an urgent intensity. Steve held his breath until finally Boyd cocked one eyebrow, let out the faintest tiny laugh and said, “Okay then. See ya round.”

The prick never even shook his hand. He just walked off, not a wrinkle to be seen in his impeccable suit. Steve finally exhaled.

At first glance Steve had thought Jason’s suit was tailored to give him a broadshouldered look. Now, from the back, it was obvious that Jason tailored his suit to actually hide his massive shoulders. His jacket seemed to stretch at the seams as he hulked down a row of cubicles. Steve hadn’t noticed this from the front, how huge Boyd actually was. Did he just grow right in front of me? Steve felt like a gnat as he retreated to his computer.

He tried to focus on his spreadsheets, but the image of that smug asshole was inescapable, like a sore in your mouth that would go away if you could just keep yourself from tonguing it.

It was that goddamn suit, built to fuckin’ hide his muscles! That goddamn grin and casual tone. And that goddamn name! Jason Boyd. Everything about him made Steve cringe. Repulsed him, even. Hell, if Steve had that build, he thought he might come to work in jeans and a white T. Maybe a pair of boots, you know, ass-kickin’ boots. Maybe even change his email address and reprint his name plate: Tax Warrior.

A vision began to unfold in his mind. He closed the spreadsheet and let the vision fully form.

He glanced around his office, which he’d had for almost a decade now, then stared at the lone artifact on his bare desk. Inside his snow globe, Winter Warrior stood alone. Fearless. And rippling with muscle.

It was clear now. He typed “gym membership” into Google, his fingers smashing down on the keyboard. No more beer after work at TJ’s Tavern. Ever! After seeing Jason, the thought of sitting on his ass at the tavern disgusted him.

On Google maps, he found that a 24-Hour Fitness was located right between the office and his house, sort of. Well, what was thirty minutes-ish out of the way? This was his health after all. Susan would wait. She always encouraged him to do what made him happy. Probably because she knew how unhappy being an accountant really made him.

It was lonely at work. Like college, he was still different from all the other guys.

He had never made that friend he’d always hoped he’d have. The one that might replace Winter Warrior. Susan was literally his only friend.

Being an accountant was like starting a race with two sprained ankles. Sales guys were all back-slapping and glad-handing. They put money in the books, so on paper they gave the illusion of being heroes. And like everyone knows, all heroes have a little bitch.

They might be an important bitch; hell, usually they were the real heroes, but a bitch nonetheless. That’s what Steve was to the rest of Stormhead. A bitch. But he’d never felt it like he had when Jason Boyd looked at him.

He-Man had a green lion, Batman had Robin, and in the 90’s there was Captain Planet who had a whopping five bitches. Dubbed The Planeteers, they were the ones who did all the real dirty work, the investigating, the problem-solving, and the number crunching, and only at the very end would Captain Planet swoop in, thus garnering all the credit. Steve knew that The Planeteers were the real warriors, the unsung heroes, even if no one else did. And like true heroes, they didn’t need recognition; they shunned the credit, because they knew who really had the power, who was truly in control. And that was Steve to a T. Sales guys might add a few dollars here and there, but with just a keystroke, Steve could control budgets, salaries, and bonuses. Finding one simple tax loophole could save his company millions. Could Jason Boyd or any of the little sales bastards say that? No way. That was real power.

Until now, he had allowed himself to be everyone’s bitch, to go unrecognized.

But that was about to change. Steve was about to change.

He briefly considered actually changing his email to taxwarrior@stormhead.com.

That would be too bold, though. You can’t call yourself a warrior; other people have to see it in your actions. The only one who knew about the Tax Warrior was his wife Susan, his Lois Lane. The only one who noticed him, or even appreciated him. He had always thought of himself as her warrior, but now, he would be his own warrior too.

Forty-five minutes after work ended, he pulled into the 24-Hour Fitness parking lot. He felt a surge of adrenaline as he looked up into the windows lined with rows of people lifting, pulling, running. It felt amazing.

He strode towards the building, wishing he could walk right past the membership desks straight to the iron. He could smell the sweat before he even entered, and it smelled sweet.

He sat down with a fitness consultant. “Would you like personal training lessons?” Before Steve could answer, he continued, “We recommend the six-month package, it forces you not to quit, and with your new membership we have a special for only $30 per hour. You’ll never get it cheaper.”

God, he hated sales guys. He was no quitter. He was a fucking warrior! Albeit a tax warrior. And furthermore, he was no cheapskate. If he had had a custom charcoal gray suit he bet he wouldn’t have been given the same pitch. Hell, they probably would have asked him if he would like to apply to be a trainer. “No thank you, I’ll just take my membership.”

That first day, he worked out in dress slacks and his white undershirt. People gave him looks, some even chuckled, but he ignored feelings born out of white cut-offs and a Winter Warrior T. Let them laugh. Steve didn’t care. Warriors don’t care. They kick ass with no regards to what anyone else thinks. And besides, no one would be laughing a year from now, when he would be throwing massive weights around like twigs.

He wrapped his fingers around the rough handles of the 20-pound dumbbells.

They felt like they might bite into the soft flesh of his accountant hands. Let them! he

thought, as he violently pulled the weights off the rack, instantly churning out bicep curls in front of the tall, gym-wide mirrors.

His thin frame and soft body looked awkward behind his Fruit of The Loom undershirt. He did about eight reps per arm before the burn seared so deep he almost lost his grip. He felt the blisters rising up like zombies from the soil of his hands. After the fourth set his glasses began to fog. His heart was racing. And his pits were staining yellow rings into his shirt.

After his fifth set, he moved on to bench press. His foggy glasses made it hard to see. He took them off and set them beside the bench. Without any weight on the barbell, Steve wrapped his bubbling fingers around the cold steel. Here goes nothing. He pushed the bar off its cradle and lowered it slowly to his chest. As he did, his arms began to tremble and shake like the legs of a newborn giraffe. After the first rep, he closed his eyes and imagined hundreds of pounds on each side of the barbell. He fed off the fire searing his chest and the pain from his melting hands, and used it to press the bar slowly down and quickly up. He managed seven reps, and racked the weight just before his arms gave out. I might look like a pussy, he thought as he wiped away the clear fluid running down his hand, but I feel like a warrior!

After the workout he strode out to his car, chest out, pushing his shoulders forward like a football player. He cranked up his Volvo and changed the station to 98.3 Hard Rock. He cranked that up too.

When he stepped into his house that evening, Susan came running from the upstairs den. “T.W. Where have you been?”

T.W. God, he loved that. Tax Warrior! He saw her glance down at the yellow ring of sweat around the neck of his undershirt. “At the gym.”

“And where are your glasses?”

He hadn’t even noticed they were gone. “I guess I left them at the gym,” he said in his best jock voice.

She gave him a girlish smile, and inspiration struck. He reached forward, grabbed his wife by the hips and threw her over his shoulder. How he had the strength, he had no idea. His muscles felt shaky and soft, but his dick didn’t. It was all that manliness from the gym.

He carried Susan down the hall, into the bedroom, and tossed his wife down onto the bed. This wasn’t his style at all, but he thought, it will be now.

She giggled as he started to undress her, and the look on her face made her even sexier than when they first met. He tore off her panties, and made love to her like a warrior, maybe even like Jason made love to whatever girl he chose. At one point Susan was so sweaty he could barely keep his hands from sliding off her hips. He was burning up, and clearly she was too. As she rode him from on top, he took the cup of water from the nightstand and poured half down Susan’s chest and the other half onto his own face, all in stride. He was the fuckin’ Tax Warrior.

CHAPTER 6

Over the next six months, Steve fine-tuned his new routine. Every morning he drank a blender full of frozen fruit, nuts, milk, and weight gainer protein. No ice. That just took up room from the good stuff, for calories. His only indulgence was an occasional glass of wine from his cellar to replace the brews from TJ’s Tavern he used to enjoy so much. He packed his gym bag and Susan packed his 1,500 calorie lunch. He’d learned you have to eat to gain muscle. He would go to work and count down the hours until quitting time, after which he sped to the gym.

The first month had been hell on his body. He ached like dough under a rolling pin, one that pressed him daily. By the third month he started to feel less like the dough and more like the rolling pin. His hands had become tough and calloused. He hadn’t missed a single day. He could curl the forty pound dumbbells and get ten slow and controlled reps. He was bench pressing 180 pounds. After his workout he would shower at the gym, before going home to his cardio workout. Sex with Susan.

Susan seemed to love the new Steve. Her T.W. was undergoing a metamorphosis.

The Tax Warrior felt better, looked better, slept better, and fucked better. She cooked more often, made herself up more often, and seemed happier than Steve had ever seen her. It was a far cry from their old sex life, which was as thrilling as C-Span.

Sometimes months had passed without them making love. And on many nights when he and Susan had simply said their good nights before drifting off, Steve had tried to think back. To recapture the feelings of lust he had been robbed of all those years ago.

But his memory was always superseded by the shame he had felt. All that was left was a

hazy title that hinted at a dirty magazine’s contents. Almond Ass. Until now, he had always vilified the Almond Ass magazine. Blaming it for his sexual issues, when this whole time, the key had been right under his nose. Winter Warrior, without whom he would never have found his way to the gym.

Steve’s new sex life was not without complications, however. Susan had brought up children again. She had never really pressed the issue before, understanding Steve’s natural apprehensions from his own troubled past. But Steve had always felt it looming.

She was thirty-four, just about out of time. And now as Steve changed, she sensed her opportunity and didn’t hold back. What she didn’t understand was that he was becoming a warrior. Not a tax warrior. A real bad-ass fucking warrior. If she had understood that, she would never have asked. She would have known he wasn’t cut out to be a father.

Now if he could just get her to realize that without hurting her. Best to keep sidestepping.

After those first six months, the changes no longer went unnoticed.

One day at work, his secretary, Kelly, said he was “lookin’ sharp,” and asked if he’d been working out.

“Here and there,” he said with a little smirk. A Boyd-like smirk. Only every day.

He knew he could have her if he wanted to, but he wasn’t that guy. He was a onewoman man. There was no one else but Susan. They were Superman and Lois Lane.

Even Winter Warrior didn’t have a Lois Lane, and that made Steve feel special. Winter Warrior was truly alone; he was what Steve would be without Susan.

And Steve knew he was equally important to Susan. Having suffered at the hands of a sexually abusive family, she was rife with issues of her own. She trusted him.

Confided in him. And now, like never before, he was equipped for her. He could protect her and offer her things he had never before been capable of.

To Steve, Kelly’s admiring looks were nothing but confirmation that he’d done good work at the gym. She had never noticed him before his transformation. No one had.

Except Susan, of course. All the pricks at the office could up and die, for all he cared. He did it all for his wife. He would be the man she deserved. She would never again sleep with the soft wimpy Steve of six months ago. From now on she would have all the love and mind-blowing sex she could ever want with her Tax Warrior, and he knew that without her, there was no Warrior. That was his reality.

Now Boyd, Jason Boyd, on the other hand, was probably the cheating type. With his cocky little grin and twinkling beady eyes, he’d probably seduced every girl he ever bedded. Steve imagined Jason taking Kelly home, and in a well-practiced manner, casually taking off his coat, unveiling his ace in the hole, the rock-hard bulging muscles hidden beneath it. A stomach made of granite that led the eye right down to his massive… God, he hated Jason! And speaking of Jason, where had he been? Did he even work at Stormhead any more? Fuck him, Steve thought, and walked back into his office.

He sat down at his computer, and to his left he saw a pair of thick glasses on top of a note. He already knew they were his, but they looked different as he picked them up.

They felt heavy, and much thicker than he remembered. But they were his glasses, and he wondered how, over the last half a year, he had managed to get by without them. He closed his good eye, and sure enough the world softened. His dominant eye had taken over. Probably not a good thing. He unlocked his desk drawer and set them inside before closing and re-locking it.

He picked up the note. It was written on a legal-size piece of paper, probably torn out of one of the many legal pads that floated around the office.

T.W., I found these at the gym. Sorry it took me so long to return them. I’ve been busy.

Really busy.

-Jason Boyd T.W. The implication hit Steve like a hammer to the teeth. Susan was the only one who called him T.W. She was fucking Jason. She had to be. Why else would she have told him that?

The fucker even italicized the words Really busy! Busy fucking his wife and laughing at him.

Steve’s mind ran like lightning, each thought instantly cracking into dozens more, like barbed splinters in his mind.

Boyd had a gym membership. That was no surprise. But how did he find the glasses? And how did he know whose they were?

Boyd is working out after me if he found my glasses. Does that mean he’s fucking Susan while I’m at the gym, or while I’m at work? Just who the hell is Jason fucking Boyd? Does he even work here at Stormhead? If he doesn’t, does he get some sick thrill taunting the man whose wife he’s fucking? Yeah, that had to be it. It explained the glasses, the note, Jason’s cocky grin and attitude. And with Steve totally ignoring Susan’s plea to at least consider children, he started to understand where it might be coming from.

Steve wanted blood.

A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. He slammed his finger down onto his computer’s power button, breathing furiously. In the thirty or so seconds it took to boot up, visions of vengeance poured through his mind. A confrontation, a forced admission, and the moment Steve had secretly lusted for his entire life—a battle.

Assess the damage, formulate a plan, then execute the plan. Those were Winter Warrior’s words all those years ago. The damage was obvious. A marriage crushed by infidelity. The plan, just beginning to take shape.

Find out who he is, where he lives, what is going on between him and Susan, and then make him pay.

Make Boyd pay.

Steve typed in his password and opened the employee directory. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? In the search field he typed in Jason, and hit enter. Two matches.

Jason Carter and Jason Mayfield. Each had a tiny thumbnail image beside it. Both fat, both in shipping. Not the sickeningly handsome wife-fucker Jason.

His next search was for Boyd. An hourglass appeared, turning over and over before freezing in place.

“Ah, fuck!” He grabbed the monitor between his hands and gave it a hard shake, followed by two sharp blows that caused the monitor to blink in and out. “You’re fucking kidding me!” He pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del, but the computer remained frozen.

There was a knock at the door. Was it Jason? Had he decided to try and retrieve the note, wanting to regain his secret and draw his sick game out further? Steve’s heart thumped, and he instinctively looked around to find some sort of weapon. Nothing. He

wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, then rolled them both up. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt, ready for his battle.

“Knock knock?” came a soft female voice.

Steve took a deep breath, letting it out with a long sigh. Pull it together. This is work. “Come in, Kelly.”

His secretary cracked the door open and cautiously peeked her head in. “Um, is everything okay, Mr. Jones?”

Mr. Jones? God, he hated that. He might as well be Mr. Rogers. “Kelly, it’s Steve, okay? And yeah, everything’s fine.” He didn’t even sound like himself. He sounded mean.

“Well, I just heard a lot of commotion in there and wanted to make sure you were okay,” she said as she pushed the door open in a more normal way. She continued, “You look hot.”

Even through all his anger, Steve couldn’t help but smirk. Give her a condescending tone of voice, and she was ready to jump him.

He waited, watched her blush. “I didn’t mean hot, like hot hot, I meant hot like it’s hot-in-here hot,” she said awkwardly.“Not that you’re not, you know, hot, especially lately. No, I just meant…”

“It’s okay, Kelly, I know what you meant,” Steve interrupted, lacing the know with a heavy coat of implication. “That it?”

Kelly was looking down, disappointed in herself for how she’d handled her flub, and clearly responding to Steve’s arrogance. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jo—, I mean, Steve. Really,

you look great.” She looked up. “There’s something about you, you know, that’s really hot. Sexy even.” She blushed further.

Steve lifted an eyebrow the way he’d seen Jason Boyd do all those months ago, and ignored his natural instinct to awkwardly respond.

After a long moment of silence, she continued, “In the time I’ve been here, I’ve never seen your sleeves rolled up, but look at your forearms! I mean, they’re massive…

In a good way, I mean.”

Steve lifted his eyebrow further still. The “Boyd tactic” put the ball back in her court.

Kelly stepped inside, revealing her knee-length form-fitting skirt. She had to be fifteen years younger than him. Almost creepy. Almost.

This was already beyond the point where Steve would normally have sent her out, but his mind kept going back to Jason Boyd mounting his wife while Steve was at the gym. How many days had he gone home to Jason’s sloppy seconds? Putting his dick where his archenemy’s had been just minutes prior. If his dick had taste buds, he would have literally tasted Boyd’s cum in her. The thought made him want to retch. And for the first time in his life, Steve’s rationality yielded to impulse.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Kelly.” And with just a tiny nod of his head, Steve motioned for Kelly to close the door.

Her breasts heaved as her shallow breathing sped up. Without removing her eyes from his, she reached back, closed the door with a firm nudge, then slammed the lock home.

Steve thrust into Kelly, who leaned over the desk, her tits smashed into the glass.

He stared down at her ass. It was smooth and tan. An Almond Ass. He had once confided in Susan about the magazine, and the days that followed. He’d never told anyone else that, and now she’d betrayed him. Had she told Jason Boyd about it? He spit down onto Kelly’s backside, and realized that he was not afraid of Almond Ass any more.

As they reached climax, he found himself staring at Winter Warrior, who was surrounded in a blizzard brought on by the rocking desk. For the first time in almost three decades, he heard the superhero’s voice.

“Kill Jason Boyd.”

CHAPTER 7

Steve found himself in the locker room at 24-Hour Fitness. He pulled off his dress shirt, which was spattered with skin-colored swatches. He scraped at one. Makeup. It was peculiar, out of place.

He took a seat on the hard wooden bench and closed his eyes, breathing in the intoxicating, almost arousing musky smell he had grown to love, thinking back on his day. He had gone to work as usual, gone to his office. Then what?

It was a complete blank. Anxiety curled itself around Steve’s chest with a tightening ferocity. Something bad had happened. Really bad. He sensed it.

A dark memory began to take shape in his mind, but not from the day he’d just had. He was twelve again. Dark hours in the lightless basement. Shivering, holding his broken arm to his chest, covered in his father’s loogie, and something else. Someone else.

It wasn’t Winter Warrior, it was shame. A passenger he’d acquired, but couldn’t purge himself of. Hours with his hated companion, days even, days that drew on like weeks, months, eternity. Over time Steve had learned to ignore him, but today, like then, Steve was riddled with his passenger’s presence. An Almond Ass porn mag had created him long ago, but after such a long separation, why had his passenger chosen to return today?

Sweat began to bead on his forehead. He went to wipe it, and was surprised when his hand collided with glasses. How long had it been since he’d worn glasses?

Not since the day he met Jason Boyd. God dammit! Jason Boyd and his furry suit!

He had to be to blame.

What the fuck is going on? He took his glasses off, stared at them. And wham!

The note! Oh God, the note! Boyd was fucking his wife. While he was at the gym, no less. Why hadn’t he gone straight home to confront Jason and his wife? How did he forget that? What was happening to him? Pull yourself together. Be a warrior.

He felt the humid locker room squeeze in on him. A flicker. He stared up at the lights. They were threatening to blink out. He noticed he was alone. That seemed impossible at this hour. Somewhere in the back of the locker room, he could hear a shower running. There was a pitter patter behind the sound. It was accompanied by a thirst.

He put his dress shirt back on, and fumbled with the first button. His hands were shaking. He was losing it. Grabbing his gym bag in a ferocious grip, Steve stormed out of the locker room. He felt the lights go out as just as he escaped. He felt eyes on him, but knew not to look back.

He hustled back to his car. He had been such a pussy that he’d blanked out what had happened. Like a fool! But what about the locker room? Was the darkness following him? Surely he was just paranoid. Fueled with rage, he headed home to the battle.

CHAPTER 8

Steve’s mind raced ahead of his car as he sped toward home. Scenarios reeled in his mind.

If he caught them in the act, he might just kill them both. No, not Susan. He couldn’t kill her, no matter what she’d done. Steve would use his newfound strength to punish Jason into submission. He knew that Boyd would be a formidable adversary, but this was Steve’s test, his moment. He would interrogate them both. How long had they been fucking? How did they meet? How did it start? He wanted every graphic detail. But above all, why? That was what it all boiled down to. Why? Why me? No, why Boyd? Of all the men, why Boyd?

If Jason had already left, he would confront Susan. She owed him a full explanation, and he intended to get it.

Finally, Steve arrived at home. He cautiously pulled into the driveway, eyes darting about for things amiss. A shadow leaping over the back fence. An oil drip in the driveway. Anything. But the quaint two-story home appeared normal.

Steve knew better.

He put his car in Park and looked up at the house. All the years of marriage, the travels, the overcoming of so many obstacles. This, however, would not be overcome. He knew it was the end of his marriage. She felt dead to him.

He searched the second story window, looking for the silhouette of Boyd and Susan in a passionate embrace, making love in a way that Steve and Susan never really did. Steve had been such a loser. She had her husband, the former virgin, or Jason Boyd,

the ripped machine with an insatiable sex drive. Could he really blame her? Fuck yeah he could!

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something flicker. Something was stuck to the front door. A note.

Steve stepped out of his car, hurrying towards the yellow square, remembering the note on Comic Cool all those years ago. Out of Business. Just like his marriage.

A small yellow Post-It flicked up and down with the faint breeze. He peeled it off the door and read: I’m not sorry for what I just did to your wife. You left me no choice.

You will never see me again.

It was simply signed, Jason.

A bullet train of thoughts careened into Steve’s mind. What had he done to Susan? Or better still, in what position had he done it? The fucker just loved rubbing this in Steve’s face. The harassing office visit. The note at work. His glasses, and now this. If Steve hadn’t been so damned naive, Boyd probably wouldn’t have had to spell it out for him. The fucker had probably done him a favor, but Steve would rather hang himself than except a favor from Jason. He shoved the note into his pocket, removing his keys as he did so. His hands were shaking, and he struggled with the lock. Now she’d have warning.

Nothing could go right today! Like that chunk of time missing from his day. The blotches of makeup. What the hell? He needed answers.

The note made him confident that Boyd had already left, so he slammed through the front door, shouting his wife’s name. “Susan!” No reply. “Susan!” Silence.

She must know she’d been caught. Or what if she’d left him? The note could mean anything.

“God dammit, Susan! Answer me!” He bolted up the stairs to the bedroom. The bed was made. The room was so quiet and still he could hear atoms in the air bounding off of one another. Maybe she had left him.

No empty drawers though. Only a slight metallic smell lingered in the air, vaguely familiar. The smell of sex, most likely. Rough sex.

He walked to the closed bathroom door and took a deep breath, preparing to let Susan have it. He opened the door.

The metallic smell was not sex. It was blood. It smelled like a rusty mud puddle.

Susan’s pale body was splayed out on the white tiles, leaned awkwardly against the claw-footed bathtub, a pale angelic contrast to the dark crimson pool of blood surrounding her. The white room seemed to go black. Her eyes were closed. He had to open them.

CHAPTER 9

The police were brief and polite. To them, it was an open and shut case. A clear suicide, with no reason to suspect foul play. Her time of death predicted shortly after 1 pm, when Steve was at his office. Much earlier than he would have thought. Apparently Boyd and Susan spent the afternoons together, long before Steve was even off work. It also explained why she had been so cold and stiff.

The sun was just setting as they took her body away. The last officer handed him a business card. It read, “Janice Copeland, M.D., Grief Counselor.”

He let out a forced laugh at her name: Copeland. It was funny how the mind worked in times of grief.

He shook the officer’s hand and closed the door. The house felt empty and cold.

And even with all the lights on, it was dark. Steve took a seat on the cold wood floor of the entryway, trying to make sense of it all, fighting the rising urge to roll around moaning.

At some point in the middle of the night, Steve found himself back in his bedroom. For the first time since the day Susan had spent her first night at Steve’s apartment, back in college, he kept the bedside lamp on.

Their wing-backed king-size bed was a vast ocean without her. And in its depths, he slowly drifted into sleep, despite the scene behind the bathroom door. He entered blackness. Not the blackness of a dreamless sleep, but the blackness of a cold and wet cellar.

An indescribable pain raced up his forearm, his head threatening to explode. He was back in the basement, only the floor wasn’t damp with water—it was damp with Susan’s blood. He felt around for Susan’s body, but he was alone. Alone with his thoughts. Alone with his shame.

A flash of light came. It was his secretary’s backside hunched over his office desk, then it was gone. Another flash, his father’s face drawn tight with a look of disgust, his hawking noise reverberating in the small space. Yet another flash, this time of a dumpster at Comic Cool with a stack of magazines behind it. Again, a bright flash, this time of Winter Warrior, strong and tall, ready to take on the wicked. And finally, a flash of Jason Boyd’s eyebrow, raised high in condemnation. The man who fucked and killed Steve’s beloved wife.

All his shame encircled him with blackness. He opened his eyes as wide as possible, searching for a glimmer of light, even a mirage. But the shame folded onto him in layers, through him, and Steve was powerless to reject it. He tried to force his mind elsewhere, somewhere bright.

Thoughts of Susan’s radiant smile. Bright walks with a camera around her neck in Rome. The sunny day when they bought the house. The hyper-white of their wedding day. He couldn’t hold onto them. The blackness was inescapable. It was all he saw, all he could fixate on. This dream would not end quickly like most nightmares. It would slowly drown Steve, not for days, but for months and years of blackness. Eternal night.

Then, finally, light. Red light, coming from small beads all around him. Rat eyes, thousands, fixed on him. He pushed his way to a corner of the room. This was all Boyd’s

fault. Susan had taken Steve out of this place. Now Jason Boyd had pushed him back in for the rest of eternity.

He stared as the crimson eyes surrounding him began to merge. The sinister rats were huddling together, taking shape like colliding droplets of mercury. They formed a hulking figure obscured in shadow. It was Jason. Daunting and formidable. His suit woven of matted fur. His lips curled into a smile, revealing two long sharp teeth that glistened with Susan’s blood. He was enjoying himself.

But Steve was not horrified. He became consumed with one thing. Revenge.

He rose to his feet, and stepped out of the corner. He was no longer Stevie. He was a warrior. And looking into Boyd’s red eyes, he could see the rat’s anima. It was revolting.

Steve grabbed Jason by the back of the neck, throwing him down into the wine cellar. He would be punished for what he was. But Steve could do better than his father.

He wouldn’t spit on Jason. He jammed a finger down his own throat and spewed vomit down on his enemy. Steve smiled, knowing the stench would endure, would add a new element of torture, and would serve as an awful reminder and punishment for what Jason had done. It would be far worse than any rancid milk jug.

Jason looked up at him, covered in vomit, with a broken back, unable to feel his legs as he pounded them with fists that worked just fine. But unlike his mother and father, Steve would leave the door locked and bolted shut forever.

Steve slammed the door shut and caught a final glimpse of Boyd’s face. It was the face of a twelve-year-old Stevie.

Steve urgently pulled at the door to open it, but he couldn’t grip the knob. His hands were filled with paper. It was an erotic magazine that glued his hands together. It prevented him from saving poor Stevie. He was trapped for eternity.

Steve began kicking the door with dense shuddering thuds. His legs grew tired and when he looked up, he could see through the door. A sign read, “Out of Business.”

Behind the sign, shrouded in darkness, was Boyd’s body, covered in bloodthirsty rats. The ultimate punishment for the murder of the wife who he knew he still loved.

Even if she hadn’t been faithful in the end. Boyd was dead in the wine cellar, a feast for rodents’ famine.

Steve had found his plan.

CHAPTER 10

A faint knock reached deep into Steve’s dream, shaking him from slumber. He reached over to wake Susan before the sickening reality bored its way back into his mind.

She was dead, his hope of a normal life gone. Grief squeezed its angry hands around his throat with nails that pierced.

The clock read 2:30 am, much too early for a concerned neighbor. Was it Jason?

Scenes of revenge from his dream began to rematerialize in Steve’s mind. He had formed a plan, and now in his lucidity, he was eager to carry it out. If the knock was Jason, he’d come to the right place. A damp cellar eagerly awaited.

He heard another faint knock. It couldn’t be Jason. Jason, with his muscular arms, would surely have a loud, forceful knock. And the note. You will never see me again, it had said. Well, that definitely wouldn’t be the case. Steve would dedicate his life to finding Jason even if it cost him everything.

Steve got up, carefully keeping his eyes from the bathroom door, and made his way downstairs. He flicked on the porch light, undid the deadbolt, and pulled open the door.

Before him stood Jason Boyd. He wore gray slacks and a wrinkled dress shirt. His skin seemed to crawl from within.

An immense hatred came to Steve like an epiphany. All his visions of revenge wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to be especially clever.

For a brief second, he examined Boyd. An unreadable look painted his face.

Sadness? Remorse? Shame? It really didn’t matter, Steve thought. A strong smell of alcohol wafted from Boyd’s body.

Jason cautiously raised an eyebrow. The same cocky look as before, the one Steve had seen on his wife’s dead face. It wasn’t sadness. It was mockery!

And that was all it took.

He grabbed Jason by the shirt and jerked his massive body over the threshold and down across the hard floor. Boyd hit like a pallet of cinder blocks. Something, maybe his elbows, squeaked as he hit the hardwood.

Before Jason could speak, Steve poured a fist into his face.

Jason’s head bounced to the side. He raised a protective hand in front of his face and looked up, wide-eyed. “I’m so sorry!”

Sorry wouldn’t save him. Steve stood over him, breathing loudly through his nostrils, his anger reminding him of his father’s. His knuckles were alive with pain.

Jason continued, “I know I said I’d never see you again, but…”

The words never came. Steve landed a heavy kick into Jason’s ribs, causing him to double over.

“You sick fuck! Come to my home!” Steve kicked him again. “To what? Taunt me?” Yet another kick, which drew a muffled scream from Jason. “Well, I’m not the man you thought I was. I’m bigger now. And I’m stronger than you’ll ever be. Even with all those muscles, you’re a fucking pussy!” He was astonished at the power of his hatred. In this moment, Steve felt like the man his father had always wanted him to be.

He knelt down and pulled Jason up into a sitting position, looking him in the face.

“You have to feel like a man by fucking people’s wives? By killing helpless women? Tell me how you did it. Tell me how you killed her or I swear to God I will beat the shit out of you, and then put you in a very dark place. And you better believe me when I say it’s worse than death.”

Boyd didn’t know he’d be in that dark place whether he talked or not. Steve could see him breaking open bottles of wine to quench his thirst as weeks passed in a delirious drunken blackness. The longer he suffered, the better. But first Steve needed the answer to the burning question. “Why?” “What?” came Boyd’s new and unusually high voice.

Steve rotated his trunk to push as much force into his punch as he could. It hammered into Jason’s hard stomach with a satisfying thud. Jason doubled over in pain, hugging his injured abdomen. Steve snarled, “Say what again, you sick fuck!”

Jason’s voice rose to an even higher pitch as he writhed in pain. “I’m s—s—” He sniffled. “S—sorry, Steve, but please jutht thstop it already!”

He was lisping. The creature was lisping! Steve was being mocked. Jason wasn’t hurt. He was acting like a faggot! A fucking faggot! A deep fury welled up inside Steve’s body. He felt it ignite him. But there was something else too. Some other emotion that couldn’t quite be placed. A pathetic quality that Steve recognized. It was one he hated with a supernatural ferocity.

Steve’s fist bore directly into Jason’s face, an uppercut that crushed Jason’s nose with a loud snap. Or was it his cheekbone? Jason’s face drooped awkwardly, blood, tears,

and drool streaming down like webbing into a puddle on the floor. He was crying now.

No. He was weeping now. Weeping like a little girl.

Steve had expected a brawl. After all, this was really why he had been working out all this time. To destroy Jason, even before he knew about the affair. The only brawl had been on his bloody knuckles. Where was his battle? “I’m not gonna ask you again.

Why did you kill her?”

Jason pleaded with him through bloody lips. “I didn’t. I, I mean I would never.

I…” Steve had the growing sense that he was being messed with, that at any moment Boyd would rise to strike Steve down with a single blow and then feast on his blood.

“Don’t fuck with me, Jason. You made it look like a suicide, but left me the note so I would know that you killed her.” He stared into Jason’s eyes. “And even if you didn’t kill her yourself, you played her. You manipulated her. And if she did kill herself, it’s because she couldn’t bear what she had done!”

Jason’s effeminate voice grew louder, despite his broken face. “What she had done? You mean what you had done!” He looked at Steve with hate in his eyes. “That’s right, Steve, I told her everything! About the years of long talks at TJ’s Tavern. About our lunches.” He paused for a moment, and his voice softened. “And about when we had sex. I told her what you said to me that night, you son of a bitch. That you loved me!”

Steve reeled back, feeling like Jason’s words were a physical blow.

Jason continued, confident now that he had Steve’s attention. “We held each other afterwards. You told me that you were my Tax Warrior. Do you remember that?” His voice faltered as Steve stared at him. “But when you left my house, and I said see you at

TJ’s tomorrow, you had a blank look on your face. And all you said was you would be busy. REAL busy! Like I was nothing!”

No. But those were Jason’s words, from the note. It couldn’t possibly be true.

Steve could almost feel his face wrench into a bizarre spiral of confusion and bewilderment. He was unable to speak.

“I’ll never forget that look. It was scary. Like you were someone else. Like you had checked out.” Jason’s voice was high-pitched and desperate. “I knew something was wrong after that night, so I show up to see you at work the next day, and you just pretend you don’t even know me! I thought maybe you were playing around. But when I waited for you at TJ’s that day, you never showed up. And when I left, I went to the gym by my house to blow off some steam, and guess what I found? Your glasses! At my gym! Why did you do that, Steve? There’s a gym by your office, and one by your house. You knew that was my gym! You knew how much I loved that gym! Were you torturing me? Just fuck me and forget about me?”

Steve backed up another step, arms dropping to his sides. He wanted Boyd to shut up, just shut up, but he went relentlessly on. “No, you couldn’t just use me. You had to fuck with my head too! I changed gyms, but I kept your glasses. I kept hoping that you might find your way back to me, because you know what? I still loved you! God knows why. You didn’t even deserve it. But after all these months I couldn’t take it anymore! I returned your god-damned glasses, and then I told Susan everything! How was I supposed to know that she’d—” Boyd stopped, at a loss.

Steve’s knees felt weak, and he found himself closing his eyes. Surrounded once again by darkness, embracing it, wanting to die.

Jason said softly, “I am so sorry, Stevie. I never imagined that she…”

With his eyes still closed, Steve asked, “Stevie? How do you know about that?”

His voice was somehow calm.

“Have you gone crazy? It wasn’t that long ago. I always called you Stevie. You said you loved it. Remember?”

In Steve’s mind’s eye, his childhood slowly came into focus. Stevie.

Jason sounded stunned. “Jesus Christ, you really don’t remember any of this?”

Stevie. The name brought back a flood of memories. But Stevie had died in the basement all those years ago. An Almond Ass killed Stevie and created Steve. An Almond Ass, and his father.

He flashed back to the day he first met Boyd. It was odd, really, that Steve hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his body. The arousing feelings he brought home from the gym. Further back, he found himself in his high school locker room, watching his friends change gym clothes with more intent than seemed normal for a boy. Then further still, he flashed to his childhood. Shameful memories of wanting to masturbate to his muscular hero, Winter Warrior, excited for each new issue. And he flashed on the dumpster, the one concealing the stack of magazines. How he could only grab one, so he took the one on top.

He could finally see it clearly. The false memory of Almond Ass faded into reality. He watched in his mind as the magazine took shape, All Man Ass. The cover featuring the backside of a muscular jock.

He remembered now.

Remembered how he hastily threw it in his backpack and ran home. He could vividly remember the mix of emotions he’d felt that night, alone in his room. Those men, hot and ripped, doing it with each other right there in the magazine. Stevie was so vulnerable, yet turned on. He knew what he was doing wasn’t normal for a boy, and that his father might literally kill him, but the pre-teen hormones coursing through his veins were enough to push those feeling aside, despite all the risk. At least until his father had walked in.

And maybe his father had always suspected. Maybe that was why he was so hard on him. And just maybe, it was why his mother gave up on him, why she had ultimately turned.

Steve finally opened his eyes, taking in Jason Boyd. The resemblance was astonishing. How had he only seen it just now? The smooth and chiseled face, the broad chest, and those wide shoulders. Almost a dead ringer. And being called Stevie. Jason was the spitting image of his first love, Winter Warrior.

Steve heard the thud, before he realized that his knees had hit the hardwood floor, numb to any pain it caused. He was unaware of the tears streaming down his face.

He was crying for the first time since the eternal night. Unsure who he was.

Confused beyond repair. Mostly he cried for Susan, who truly was his best friend, his first real love, but not the true love he had convinced himself she was. He now understood why she killed herself.

It was the family she was robbed of having. The home filled with happy children, which she longed for but gave up, to be with a man she could trust. A fair trade to someone as damaged as her. But, the only man she had ever trusted had lied, and stolen

from her all hope in humanity. Confirmed her worst fears about men. And it was a world she wanted out of, like Stevie had moments before his mother opened the basement door.

Susan’s death was Steve’s fault. Her blood was on his hands.

He buried his face in his hands to hide his shame, tears streaming between his fingers. He felt a gentle touch just above his knee. He opened his eyes to find Jason had extended a cautious hand from his broken body. One of sympathy and support.

And while Jason’s sincere eyes were no longer beady, he had been the one who told Susan when it wasn’t his place to. There was a name for that. A rat.

Steve would pay for the rest of his life, but there was blood on Jason Boyd’s hands too.

EPILOGUE

Steve’s back screamed at him, but three truck beds full of quick cement and sixteen straight hours of work had put to rest a dark piece of his past. Steve had filled in his wine cellar. He had no use for it anymore. It had been locked shut for over two months, and the smell that seemed to come from it had become unbearable.

Maybe it was imagined. He hadn’t felt right in so long, but it had started reminding him of his father’s basement back home all those years ago. The story was, Steve had fallen in while his parents were away for the weekend. They thought he was with his grandma, so he sat undiscovered, living in a nightmare.

The memory seemed to validate his hard work. There was now one less dark room in what had become a very somber home.

As he wiped the sweat off his brow, his bicep went from a long slab to a rockhard sphere. He threw his gloves into the empty cement mixer and stared at the drying square that marked the former entrance to the wine cellar. He didn’t need a place like that in his home, and he took comfort knowing that Susan wouldn’t have minded what he had just done. She had always supported Steve.

Since her death, his life had become so different. Everywhere he went people seemed to stare. They knew. They all knew. Perhaps today, he had finally buried his dark past once and for all.

He turned to face his wife’s ashes, imagining his guilt crumbling off of him. It had been the hardest two months of his life. He hardly recognized the man he had

become anymore. Every day he pretended he wasn’t consumed with shame. But it was getting better. And with each passing day, he felt more and more like himself.

He felt a hand on his back and turned. An extended arm offered Steve a glass of lemonade. “I put a little creatine in there and a scoop of amino acids. After what you just did, you probably need it.”

Steve took the glass. “Thanks, Jason,” he said.

Copyright © 2011 by Johnny Mike

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This e-book edition published in 2012.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.