Dead Bad Things

by Gary McMahon

It seemed that she too had better things, more interesting things, to occupy her time. The old bastard must have been looking at these old photographs not long before he died. She could think of no other reason why they would be so easily found; surely he would usually have kept them under lock and key in his office space in the cellar?

  Sarah returned to her seat and sipped her coffee. It was lukewarm, but it tasted good. Maybe she would brew up a fresh pot, just to keep her going as she went through her father's belongings. Because wasn't it about time she did that? Hadn't she been procrastinating for long enough?

  The day stretched ahead of her, filled with potential. The secrets of the house beckoned. Beneath her feet the cellar swelled with darkness, forbidding her entry. The windows shone with burnished morning light. Now all she had to do was ditch Benson, so she could finally get down to business and reacquaint herself with her father.

  FIVE

  Trevor looked at the boy and frowned. What was his name again? Ah, yes: Derek. Not a very memorable name, but with a surname like Pumpkiss, Trevor could hardly be choosy. He much preferred his stage name, Dove, but that was all in the past now. He doubted he could ever go by the name Trevor Dove again – not after what had happened. Not since he had been exposed.

  "You OK?" Derek was wearing a pair of skinny jeans and scuffed baseball boots. He'd taken off his shirt when he had accidentallyon-purpose spilled red wine on the sleeve. It was a lame move – far too obvious – but Trevor had pretended to fall for it. The boy was charming, in a low-rent kind of way, and he had a beautiful smile. Nice white teeth. The shapeless figure of an adolescent.

  "Sorry… yes, I'm fine. Just thinking." He tried to grin, but his face refused to move in the right way and it probably looked more like he was having a stroke.

  "Thinking?"

  "Yes."

  "I see. I like a man who thinks."

  Trevor tried not to laugh. As seductions went, it was pathetic. The boy clearly read too many porn mag letters pages, spent too much time on internet forums. "Is that so?"

  "Yes. It is. I like you… I like you a lot."

  There you go: he'd moved into second gear.

  Trevor took a step towards the boy, moving past the large sofa and standing near the polished oak coffee table. He'd already refilled their wine glasses but neither of them had taken a drink since the spillage incident. Trevor reached down and picked up his glass. He took a large mouthful of merlot. Nice. Like the boy and his bright white teeth. His soft white skin.

  "Come here," said the boy. He had lowered his voice; his eyes were shining. He was trying to be the alpha dog. Once again, Trevor held back a surge of laughter.

  "OK," said Trevor, moving forward until he was standing only inches away from the boy. "Here I am." Trevor towered above the boy; he was a head taller.

  "Yes, there you are." The boy lunged. He was clumsy and graceless, but didn't even realise how inept his moves were. He thought he was being so smooth, so in-control. His mouth crawled across Trevor's face; his hand grabbed Trevor's crotch, rubbing it.

  Trevor tried to throw himself into the act – he really did. Derek was wonderful to look at, and he had one of those cute little skinny-fat-boy pot-bellies. Yet he was narrow of build, and his skin was coloured a shade of white which took the breath away.

  "What's wrong?" The boy pulled back, but he kept his hand pressed against Trevor's cheek; his other hand remained down there, stroking gently. "Don't you like me?"

  This time Trevor did laugh. It was a small sound, and very brief. The boy removed his hands from Trevor and took a single backwards step, pretending to sulk.

  "No. Really. I do like you. I'm sorry, friend… it's just that I've been through a bad time, a really shitty time. It's affected… well, you know. My responses." He held the boy's gaze, almost challenging him to react.

  Derek sat down heavily in the armchair. He stared at his feet, and then picked up his glass. "So it isn't me, is that what you're saying?" He looked even more like a little boy and Trevor at last began to feel the beginnings of a red-rushing wave of desire.

  But God, he was so fucking shallow. So self-obsessed. "No," said Trevor. "It's me. Really."

  Derek smiled. "Well, how about we just take it slowly and see what happens. I've never failed yet, you know." His lips were red. It was the wine, of course, but Trevor kept thinking of blood. Fat lips covered in blood.

  His desire fled; the red rush faded.

  "I think that's a good idea," said Trevor. "How about I open another bottle?"

  He went through into the kitchen and took a fresh bottle from the wine rack above the sink. The place was clinically clean – not a dish out of place or as much as a crumb visible on the work surfaces. Trevor had always been slightly obsessive, and these days those qualities were focused on his housekeeping. Back when he performed on the stage, speaking with the dead, he had been obsessed with his outfits, his hair, and his carefully crafted repertoire with the audience. Now that he had left the stage behind, he had turned to other, more prosaic obsessions.

  He opened the wine and let it breath, staring at his face in the kitchen's many reflective surfaces – the stainless steel oven, the clean glass of the microwave door, and the highly polished side of the toaster. What he saw there saddened him: he had lost a lot of weight and was starting to look his age. The showman in him was disappointed that he'd let himself go, but the rest of him considered it a suitable punishment for what he had done. Why should he look good when his life had turned to shit?

  Trevor felt like punching his reflection, but knew that he wouldn't bother. He didn't want to hurt his knuckles.

  He heard the boy – Derek, damn it; his name was Derek – moving around in the lounge. Probably checking out the bookshelves (there were a lot of copies of Trevor's own book, Heart of a Dove, in the house, but they were stored in boxes; the publisher had allowed it to go out of print long before the rumours began and the book had ironically started selling again), or perhaps riffling through his CDs. There was no money lying around; Trevor was far too wise for that. He'd been turned over before, in a similar situation, so he no longer kept cash on the premises unless it was locked in the safe.

  Sighing, he picked up the bottle and walked back through into the lounge.

  Derek was standing looking at a poster. He had unrolled it and was holding it with both hands, reading the text. His thin fingers gripped the edges lightly, and his face was obscured by the big square of glossy paper.

  Shit, thought Trevor. I thought I'd locked all of those away.

  But did he really think that, or had he left one out for whoever he brought back from the club to discover? Like a test, just to see how far they would go.

  Derek glanced up from the poster. He was smiling. "Oh my God. It's you, isn't it?" He turned the poster face-out, as if Trevor had no idea what was printed there.

  But he did. Of course he did. It was one of the posters from his last tour – the one which had come to a disgraceful end in Bradford. He looked at the image of himself: a gaudy little queen in a pastel suit, with bouffant hair and a cheesy smile, motioning with his hands. He looked ridiculous, but he hadn't thought so back then, only six months ago. Back then he had thought he looked fucking great.

  But that was then, when he could still contact the dead. Now that his gift had deserted him, he felt like he was no longer Trevor Dove, professional psychic. Indeed, that was why he now went by his loathsome, comical real name: Trevor Pumpkiss.

  "Put that down," he said. "Please. Just put it away."

  Derek, sensing that this was serious, rolled up the poster and placed it back on the shelf where he must have found it. "I'm sorry. It is you, though, isn't it? You're that psychic bloke, the one who…" A look of surprise crossed the boy's face, as if for the first time in his short life he had suddenly become self-aware.

  "The one who they say raped his kid brother?" Trevor handed him the bottle. His hands were steady. The boy's hand, when he reached out to take the wine, was
not.

  "I… I didn't mean anything."

  Trevor shook his head. "Don't believe everything you read in the gutter press, friend."

  Derek put down the wine bottle and then returned to the armchair. When he sat down, his naked torso gleaming pale and delicious in the soft light, Trevor finally felt a twinge of genuine passion. "Let's start again," he said, smiling at the boy. "Like we've only just met. How does that sound?"

  "I'd like that." Derek's smile was slight yet knowing; he licked his lips before sipping more wine, just as he'd done in the small basement club near Call Lane, where they'd met at the bar. "I'd like it a lot."

  "So tell me about yourself." Trevor sat on the floor and crossed his legs, as if squatting at the feet of an idol.

  "There's not much to tell." Derek's left eye twitched; it was a subtle movement, but a dead giveaway that there was indeed a lot to tell. "I left home at fifteen, after my dad beat the shit out of me for being gay. After that I drifted through a succession of empty relationships, taking on dead-end jobs to pay the bills. There was a brief time when I lived on the streets. Then, one cold winter evening, I was picked up by an older man who gave me a bed in return for a blowjob. That's when I realised my calling: that I was just a dirty little whore." A grin crawled across his mouth: sleazy, unpleasant, making him look old and used up. "I stayed there for a year, honing my skills." He smiled, but it lacked any real humour. There was a glistening darkness trapped behind his eyes, and for the first time Trevor thought the boy looked as if he had substance. "He taught me everything. Then I left him to make my own way, and much later I met you in the Crimson Club." This smile was more natural; it played at the edges of his mouth, making him look even cuter (and once again younger) than he actually was.

  "I see."

  "It's an old story," said Derek, shrugging his narrow shoulders. "The same one told by thousands of other lads my age. Nothing new. Nothing unique." There was such a sense of desperation behind the words; and a terrible hunger for recognition which made Trevor feel uneasy.

  Derek looked down at his legs.

  Trevor realised that he was stroking the boy's knee. He stared at his hand, and then glanced up at Derek's face. "How old are you, friend?"

  Derek closed his eyes. "I'm twenty-one."

  "Really?"

  "Really." He opened his eyes again and they looked hard, like chunks of glass. In that moment Trevor would have believed that the boy was older even than him – older than anyone he had ever met. His eyes, anyway, were ancient.

  Trevor struggled awkwardly to his feet and leaned across his guest. His hand brushed Derek's chest and as he lowered his mouth to the other's lips, he felt his own eyes close. Behind them, peering through the darkness, he saw his baby brother's small white face. Desire surged; he forced the game, needing to play it through to the last move.

  They went to the bedroom, where the sheets were already turned down. "You were expecting to bring someone back here tonight?" Derek smiled. He kicked off his shoes and took off his jeans before lying down on the bed.

  "Not just anyone," said Trevor. "Someone. Somebody like you."

  They tussled for a while, jockeying for position: with a new partner, it was often difficult to judge who would be on top. It became a battle of wills, almost a genuine wrestling match, but finally the boy went loose and acquiescent and brought up his knees to accommodate Trevor.

  The moment felt heavy, as if the air had turned to sludge. They moved slowly, their limbs heavy with tension. Trevor turned his head to the side, and when he glanced into the fulllength mirror on the wall he saw what looked like the palm of a hand pressed against the other side of the glass…

  It stayed there for a second, the tips of its fingers white against the glass, and then it pulled away, vanished.

  Trevor blinked. There were tears in his eyes. He returned his attention to Derek, but already he was fading, becoming limp. "I'm sorry," he said, burying his head in his partner's naked shoulder. "I can't…"

  This wasn't the one; it was not his brother. Never his brother.

  He rolled off the boy and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. The circular light shade was an eye staring down at him; the white plaster on the ceiling was alabaster skin. It was a face. Something was up there, looking down at his vulgar contortions.

  "It happens," said Derek, beside him, but Trevor could tell from his voice that the boy was angry.

  "Get out." He turned back to the mirror. The hand was back, but this time there was another alongside it: there seemed to be an unseen figure leaning against the mirror with both hands. "Just go." The hands clenched, became fists. Then they began to silently batter at the glass.

  "What the fuck are you talking about? Am I too old? Is that it? I can get you someone younger, if that's what you need."

  Trevor sat up on the bed and stared at the boy. "I don't want you here. You're not him, not Michael. You're nobody. I can't do this." He was aware of the fists slamming against the glass behind him, but he could not hear them. They were a sign, a signal; they were telling him what to do. The owner of the fists wanted him to hurt the boy, to pummel him just as the fists were striking the inside of the mirror.

  "Get out before I hurt you."

  Perhaps it was something in Trevor's eyes, or the look on his face, but Derek suddenly moved from the bed and picked up his clothes. He pulled them on as he shuffled across the room, his dead eyes wide and fearful, his skin pale and thin so that the veins beneath made a fine blue tracery. "You're mad. Fucking crazy."

  "Yes," said Trevor, grinning. "Yes, I am." He began to stand, but the boy turned around and ran down the hall. The sound of the door slamming was hilarious, but Trevor could not even begin to understand why it made him laugh.

  Then, when his hysteria was under control, he turned back to look at the mirror.

  There was a figure standing there, but its outline was vague, blurry, as if formed by smoke. He could still see the room reflected in the glass, but behind the image was this other, this man. It was like one reality being overlaid across another. The thought both terrified him and filled him with a sense of wonder.

  Trevor watched the figure until it was gone from sight, as if that second reality had stepped back from the first – the weaker image supplanted by the stronger. But even though he could no longer see it, he knew that the figure was there, waiting. The man hovered just out of sight, out of reach, but he would not remain that way forever. And Trevor realised that the man was desperate to reach out to him through the glass.

  He crossed the room and went to the built-in wardrobe, and then he reached up to open the upper door, the one close to the ceiling. Inside the compartment were assorted work clothes – old slacks and stained T Shirts he wore when he was gardening or pottering around the house doing chores. Buried underneath these things was a small lacquered wooden box. Trevor took out the box and shut the door. He turned and walked back to the bed, where he sat down and stared at the black box. Slowly, tenderly, he brushed his fingers against the lid. Then he opened the box.

  Inside were photographs. Not many of them, just a few. Each of them was of a small boy with thin legs and a sad face. The boy's hair was fair; his eyes were pale. He was beautiful.

  "Michael," said Trevor, his eyes filling with tears. "I miss you." He picked out a picture which showed his brother standing in the shade of a high wall. The boy was wearing a pair of ice-blue shorts and a Disney T Shirt. He was not smiling. He had never smiled – not even before Trevor started doing those things… the things he was unable to stop.

  Trevor was weeping now; his throat felt raw, his cheeks were damp. He had an erection. A gap opened up inside him. It was a place that he kept hidden, but it was always there, just beneath the surface. It never left him, this gap. It simply sat there inside him, waiting to be filled. But it could not be filled; it would be empty forever, because his brother Michael was dead. Trevor had killed him. He had not lifted a hand to deliver the final blow, but he had done
it all the same – he had killed the thing he had loved.

  When he was thirteen years old Michael had cut off his own genitalia and bled to death, all because of Trevor. To stop him from doing those things… those horrible, wonderful, treacherous fucking things that he did.

  Those acts…

  …oh, such acts… such amazing acts of love…

  His shoulders hitching, his vision blurred by grief and shame and regret – and, yes, desire – Trevor looked at the mirror. He could see nothing in the glass but the reflection of his own sad world, a self-created prison in which he was punished over and over again by his unnatural passions.

  "Help me," he whispered. "Please help me."

  It occurred quickly, and if Trevor had not been staring at the correct spot on the glass he might have missed it. It happened fast, but it happened. It really did happen.

  A small, thumb-sized graze appeared in the top right corner of the glass, like the sudden damage caused by a pebble hitting a car windscreen. It sounded like a gunshot. Trevor stopped crying. He stood and approached the mirror. The deformation did not vanish. It was there. It was real.