Silent Ground: Part 1

by Quil Carter

  For the first time in over a week, Lex had a smile on his face. For a brief moment, even if it was alcohol-induced, he was happy. Jobe treasured this fleeting feeling, and decided to carry on with the conversation, no matter how embarrassing it was. Lex deserved this… he was a good guy.

  “So how long has it been?” Lex asked. He grabbed the whisky bottle and scooted closer to Jobe. Jobe moved himself too, so both legs were on the floor. They now sat side by side, the electric fireplace burning to their left, and the dim lighting above them.

  “Ah…” Jobe really didn’t want to answer. He was neurotically worried about it coming back to Sasha. He just… didn’t want his friend to know about that part of his life. Sasha was so sensitive, and even though Jobe was all his and he had no interest in finding a boyfriend, he still had the occasional need. “It’s been like almost five months.”

  “Oh fuck no, that long!?” The embarrassment returned with vengeance. “I’ve been without for two months and here I thought I was a loser.”

  Jobe glanced up and gave Lex a flat look. Lex smiled innocently back and offered him the whisky bottle with a slight shake. Jobe took it with an eye roll and downed a small sip. He was close to having to cut himself off, he was getting drunk and saying things he should keep to himself. They both were.

  But how Jobe’s reasoning worked was different than how his mouth worked. Jobe, without a single explanation as to why, opened his mouth and asked: “What, ah… position do you prefer?”

  He expected Lex to laugh some more, to push him or do some sort of outspoken act, but instead, he got a direct answer. “I can go either way for my boyfriend, but for casual… top.”

  Jobe nodded, unbelieving that he’d just asked the question, but also curious to know more.

  I really do need to cut myself off.

  “You?” Lex asked.

  “I… guess it also depends on the guy,” Jobe answered. “I mean, if I meet some big burly logger-type. I’m going to let him take me to town.”

  Lex chuckled. “Of course, that’s a given for the both of us.”

  “But for someone like twinky. Which were the last several guys I hooked up with… I fuck them.”

  Jobe heard Lex suck in a breath. “Damn,” he whispered. Lex unscrewed the cap of whisky and Jobe saw the bottle rise out of the corner of his eye.

  Then Lex asked it. “What would you let me do?”

  Jobe’s breath caught in his throat, but still it was nowhere near the reaction he should’ve given Lex. There was too much liquor clouding his head, both of their heads, and a week of hell that they both desperately wanted to escape, if only for one evening.

  It was drunk talk. They’d had too much to drink, and if there was a god, no one would remember this conversation.

  That better be the case, because the lubricated lips of Jobe Winter were not stopping. He stared forward, refusing to look at Lex, and said:

  “Whatever you wanted to do to me.”

  Oh, fuck, I did not just say that.

  Fucking hell, Jobe. What’s––

  Lex suddenly raised a hand put it against Jobe’s cheek, he tilted Jobe’s face towards his… and joined their lips.

  It was… strange. Fuck, it was strange and weird. It was… Lex.

  Jobe’s eyes opened. He stared at Lex’s closed eyes, his mouth moving to accept the kiss, even if he didn’t want to. I need to stop this. We’d never be able to tell Sasha. We’d have to lie…

  Jobe then gasped, feeling a hand rest against his groin, and he became aware then that he was becoming aroused.

  No. Fucking–– “Stop!” Jobe pulled away, the trance breaking the moment their lips parted.

  Lex swore, and put a hand to his mouth. “I’m – I’m sorry, I don’t know what the fuck came over…” He removed his hand from Jobe’s groin as if it had suddenly become electrified, and stood up on shaky feet. “Forget that happened…” Lex staggered over towards the flight of stairs leading to the second level and his bedroom. “G-good night.”

  Jobe watched him go, his face still frozen in the same look of shock. He didn’t know what just happened, all he knew was that he better not remember it the next morning.

  After a minute of trying to collect his thoughts, Jobe rose. He walked towards the door leading to Sasha’s apartment, and closed it tight behind him.

  CHAPTER 17

  Sasha clutched the blanket tight to his body and tried to drown out the outside world. Today was a bright and sunny day, the birds were singing and the grasshoppers were backing up their songs with chirping, and even the chickens had been let out to roam free and eat the grass seeds or any insects they came across.

  Yes, it was a beautiful day. The best one they’d had since the weather had shaken off the last remains of winter and had embraced the fresh elements of spring. The winters may be harsh at times, especially for men living in the woods, but spring brought with it a renewed hope, and a promise for warm days and fresh starts.

  Unless you were Sasha.

  It had been days since Kel had put him into the shed, but how many of them, Sasha wasn’t sure. Now he was more aware of the time passing by, but during the first several days while he was physically at his worst, everything blurred together into one continuous barrage of pain. Pain from the wounds that painted his body like he’d been have’d-at by an angry artist, and the nightcrawler migraine that was a continuous assault on what senses that had left.

  Kel would come twice a day to clean his wounds. He’d open the door holding a clean towel and a First-Aid kit and lay the towel down onto the dirty wooden floor. Kel would sit on it as Sasha watched him from the blanket he’d wrapped himself in, and shuffle over once he was given the instruction.

  Even moving was painful. In the beginning, it would take him minutes to slowly crawl over to Kel, dragging his battered and beaten body across the wooden floor. There were still rusty red streaks underneath him, and spots of what looked like dried spit, but were, in reality, hydrogen peroxide that had dripped down from Sasha’s wounds to bubble and fizz on the floor.

  Now he could move faster, the wounds were healing with Kel’s care and Sasha’s stationary existence in the corner of the room, but his spirits were lower than ever.

  Kel hummed as he smeared Polysporin onto the wound on Sasha’s wrist. It was one of the worst injuries that Sasha had on him, that and a nasty series of cuts on his head, two of which required stitches. All of Sasha’s whip marks were healed enough to go unbandaged, they were now long brown scabs in between swollen, flaky red skin, itchy and hot to the touch. It was difficult to move without breaking one of the scabs, and at any given time there were streaks of drying blood from where the thick shells had broken like cracking concrete.

  “Now the head…” Kel whispered. He wasn’t allowed to talk to Sasha so any words that came from his mouth were said in a hushed nervous voice. “Your stitches can come out tomorrow, I think.”

  Sasha, who was sitting cross-legged in front of him, nodded weakly, his downcast blue eyes staring at Kel’s medical kit, uninterested and dead.

  Kel treated the wounds on Sasha’s scalp, then slipped a fresh wool cap onto his head. “There we go,” he said with a kind smile. He framed Sasha’s face with his hands and kissed his nose. “You’re such a bad boy, Sasha.” The smile was still on his face. “Kheva is so disappointed with you. You really have to prove yourself to get back into his good books.” Another kiss was laid on his nose and got up.

  “My head…?” Sasha looked up as Kel rose. The headache had come yesterday and it had been pulsing angrily since. “It’s really bad.”

  Kel shook his head. Sasha groaned and buried his face into his hands. Several moments later, he heard the door click shut, and then lock.

  Sasha looked up at the shed door. It was made of metal and was able to be locked on both sides. That keyhole taunted him, even when he had his back to it he could feel it staring, laughing that he was locked in this shed, unable to escape.

  He was
locked in here until Kheva let him out. A shed that sat on the fringes of the field, so close that Sasha could see the trees when he curled himself up against the wall.

  It wasn’t that big, only about the size of the downstairs bathroom. It was obvious that it was used only for punishment. There were some metal tools hanging on rusted hooks and some empty plastic buckets, one of which Sasha was forced to relieve himself in, but besides that there was just dust, and a musty smell like the cedar walls had gotten wet and then dried out many times previous.

  And the bloodstains. The dull brown streaks on the floors which were Sasha’s, and the speckles on the walls and that metal door… which most likely had been Kel’s.

  How long until I become crazy like him? Sasha had no answer, only the knowledge that it would eventually happen. Probably sooner rather than later. There was no escaping this place, Pandora’s Box had been opened the moment he got into that truck.

  No…

  It had been opened the moment Kheva sensed him. From then on, Sasha had never had a fucking chance. The Master might not have been in Sasha’s life for that long, but his personality was one that told of a man who eventually got everything that he wanted. Once this terrifying creature had Sasha in his sights, the wretch didn’t have a chance.

  And Sasha had just made him an enemy.

  That’s what I get for thinking I deserve pride, for thinking I was worth more than two men’s fuck-toy.

  I was wrong.

  Sasha closed his eyes and tightened his hold on the blanket he’d wrapped himself in. He tried to make this musty shed as dark as possible, anything to keep the throbbing migraine happy. It hated light, as it hated noise, and most of all, it hated any sort of activity that wasn’t laying completely still in darkness.

  So Sasha stayed still, and disappeared into his own mind, the only brief respite he had available to him. In between bouts of restless sleep, he thought of many things: Jobe and Lex, his apartment and his old life, but he also spent a lot of time trying to use the ability he’d only recently been able to tap into.

  It was like attempting to use your legs when you’ve been bedridden for months. The muscles were weak and stringy, and his brain troubled with how to properly use them. There was progress however, Sasha could put himself to sleep now. This ability was one he used often, a break from the pain, and his own self-derisive thoughts.

  How could he have believed this would work? That it was a good idea? Sasha had heard the truck pull back into the driveway the next morning, but he hadn’t seen the extent of the damage. Sometime between then and now, he’d heard Kheva leave, and he’d been gone for the entire day. Was he getting the business he’d had to cancel taken care of? Kel had been left behind, but when Sasha had begged Kel to bring him inside for a few hours, he’d gotten nothing but a shaken head and a mumbled no.

  Why would he help Sasha? Another outlandish thought. Apparently, at one point in time, Keluva Swift had been Rob, but now he was every inch Keluva Swift, and Keluva Swift would obey his master’s words.

  Then, the image that he’d stumbled upon when he’d accidentally infiltrated the Master’s thoughts came to Sasha. Kel and Kheva on the couch, with Sasha himself in the background sitting cross-legged in the field. Something had come over Kel, something that made Sasha question just what the fuck was going on with all of them.

  The voice that Sasha had been hearing, had come to Kel.

  “Like how Daddy destroyed you?”

  “I was enjoying the peace.”

  “Treasure it while you can, you fucking faggot.”

  Sasha’s brow wrinkled as he thought of this incident. His mind had been brushing upon all of his previous encounters with Kheva and Kel, but oddly, this was the first time he’d focused on this one. It wasn’t like it had gone anywhere, the memory was right there, but only now did it wiggle its way through the muck to the front of his inner thoughts.

  What the fuck was that voice? Was it just a by-product of being a nightcrawler? Like the blood drinking?

  This was entirely fucked up.

  “You have no idea.”

  Sasha’s body jolted from its lucid state and his eyes flew open. To his shock, he saw nothing in front of him but darkness, the humid smell that had been around him during the daylight hours, had now turned cold and damp. It was dark out now, he must’ve fallen asleep.

  “Kel?” Sasha rasped. He drew the blanket away from his face, and as he turned around, he was blinded by the beam of a flashlight.

  Sasha squinted, his hands shielding his eyes. He rubbed them, trying to stop the stinging, and as they came into focus, he saw a shadow standing by the door, flashlight in hand.

  It was indeed Kel––and the man was staring down at Sasha, the left corner of his lip risen in a smirk.

  But though it was Kel’s physical form, Sasha could feel a different energy in him. A switch in the air like when a cloud temporarily blocked out the sun.

  He smelled different–– He was different.

  “Oh, I am very different, Sasha,” Kel whispered, his eyes cradling the pale reflection of the flashlight. “So… very different.”

  Sasha’s body froze, and the cold chill of the night stung his wide eyes as the realization of who he was talking to, dawned on him.

  That voice, it wasn’t Kel’s, but it was indeed one he’d been hearing for years.

  “You…” Sasha whispered. “You’re the voice I’ve been hearing in my head?” He shifted to a sitting position and stared up at the man in front of him. “It was you? How the fuck was it you?”

  The man inside of Kel chuckled, then he sat down on the floor and brought an unlit cigarette to his lips. “It’s a long story, kid,” he said, with the cigarette tucked into the side of his mouth. “Let’s just say… I’ve been waiting a long time for you. A very fucking long time for you.”

  Sasha continued to stare, there was nothing else he could do, all of this had him stunned dumb.

  “Sorry about the mental torment and all of that,” the voice continued. “I needed to break you down so you would go with Kheva when it was time. I had to have you mentally in the right place, so you’d be able to not only save me… but yourself when it came time.”

  “What?” Sasha said, his tone dropping. Breaking him down? Had to have him in the right place? “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  The man brought out a green Bic lighter and lit the cigarette pursed between his lips. “Kheva would eventually have gotten you,” the voice said, speaking out of the corner of his mouth as he lit the smoke. “But, I’ve never been one for waiting. I’ve been trapped inside this fucking retard’s head for years now, only able to break free every once in a while, to try and weaken the big bad bitch Kheva Swift. I thought I was fucked before I found you, but once I saw your little beacon shining in that darkness… you really were my light, Sasha.”

  “Trapped inside of Kel?” Sasha repeated slowly. “You found me? You’ve been nothing but an asshole, torturing me and making me feel like shit…”

  “I needed you to advance quickly. You would’ve eventually gotten to the same place mentally, I just helped you along the long dark path of mental torment that is being a nightcrawler.”

  Sasha glared at him, his chin tight. “You purposely aided in driving me fucking crazy, and thinking I was fucking crazy, not to mention tormenting my uncle and best friend too… so I’d come to this shithole faster?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “To fucking do what?” Sasha exploded. His head was fucking murdering him, his body sore, and now his mind was so confused he felt like punching whoever that fucking voice was until his teeth broke. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

  “I want my body back,” the voice said, his tone a low growl. “I want what was mine, and I want to punish the fucking cocksucker who took it from me.”

  Sasha opened his mouth to give whoever that voice was more shit, when he found the words rising up from his throat, dying on his lips.

  The
pieces of this confusing puzzle began to fit themselves together, not well, but it was enough to give Sasha the smallest of hints as to what the fuck was going on.

  “You…” Sasha’s stomach twisted nervously, and a bit of all-knowing dread began to form. “Fuck… you’re Rob, aren’t you?”

  The voice inside of Kel, smirked. “Indeed, I am.”

  “And you’re… who Kel was before Kheva brought him here, aren’t you?”

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  Sasha’s mind exploded with questions, and not only questions, but fears for himself and his future. He wanted to know just what the fuck was going on, but at the end of all of these mysteries, was one glaring realization.

  Was what had happened to Rob, going to happen to him?

  But wait, how the fuck did this even happen? Wasn’t Kheva some sort of master mind? Some powerful nightcrawler who could peer into people’s heads? How did Rob… how the fuck did he…

  “How did you get past Kheva?” Sasha whispered. “How the hell did you get in front of me right now?”

  “How did I manage to sneak past the toughest bitch in the land?” Rob lit a second cigarette and took a long inhale; and while he blew the smoke out of his mouth, he winked at Sasha. “You, Mr. Dead Zone. All because… of you.” Rob smiled and handed Sasha the cigarette.

  But Sasha didn’t take it. He stared up at Rob, a confused expression deeply embedded in his face. “What…?”

  Another chuckle. Rob urged him to take the cigarette, and when Sasha finally did, the man brought out a fruit bar and threw it onto Sasha’s lap. “Yeah, you don’t even know, do you?” Sasha gave Rob a bewildered look when he got down on his knees and crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t even know how you created that Dead Zone, do you?”

  A Dead Zone? Sasha’s green eyes flared from the ember of the cigarette, adding a new dimension to the bewildered look plastered on his face. “I… I’m new to this. I have… no idea.”