by Jerry Cole
Wyatt fucked Isaac slowly, allowing his entire body to fold over his, his cock as deep as it could possibly be. He wrapped his arm around Isaac’s torso, gripping his hard cock. Isaac cried out in a kind of half-terror, half-pleasure. Sweat pooled between his shoulders, and Wyatt kissed it then licked it. Isaac’s cock throbbed in his hand. Bits of cum dribbled between his fingers. He felt sure he would cum any minute, himself.
“I’m going to cum,” Isaac moaned, ramming his ass tighter toward Wyatt’s stomach. “God, I’m going to cum so hard.”
Wyatt’s brain felt as though it was burning. He shrugged his shoulders back and gave a final thrust, feeling as though he was losing full control over his muscles. Isaac’s cock began to pulse wildly in his hand, spewing cum across the seat of the car, across Wyatt’s hand. Wyatt’s cock took this as a cue, cumming wildly. Wyatt’s eyes closed. He cast his head back, gazing at the starry sky above.
Isaac collapsed forward, shivering beneath Wyatt. Slowly, Wyatt drew his cock from out of Isaac and slipped along beside him, so that their chests were aligned, their nipples almost exactly next to one another. Wyatt kissed Isaac’s chin, a delicate gesture. Their cocks were spent, tired between them. Wyatt liked to watch them together, tired and weak, pressed up against one another. Again, he kissed Isaac, but this time on the lips, sweeping his fingers through Isaac’s hair as he did it.
He felt his passion for Isaac like a wave. His tongue yearned to articulate something passionate, something real. Isaac’s eyes swam with apprehension. It felt as though whatever Wyatt wanted to say, Isaac didn’t fully want to hear. Isaac reached a hand across Wyatt’s cheek and murmured, “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever been with. Inside. Outside. I think I could adore you. If only everything wasn’t so complicated.”
Wyatt’s brow furrowed. “Complicated?” he asked, drawing a bit back from Isaac. “What are you talking about? You said everything was finished with—with your boyfriend back in New York?”
“What? Oh, yes. Absolutely. I never want to go crawling back to that,” Isaac sighed, seemingly confused by the question. He swept his finger across his hairy chin, spinning on his back to look at the sky. Wyatt did the same. There was hardly space on the back seat for the both of them, but their eyes both found the stars.
“It’s just that for years and years, I never thought—” Isaac began.
“You’re sounding so cryptic,” Wyatt returned. “It’s disconcerting.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Isaac sighed. “I shouldn’t speak if I don’t know exactly what to say.”
“You can always talk to me,” Wyatt whispered. He felt he really meant it.
“I don’t know that I can,” Isaac said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that I don’t trust myself. I feel that my entire world is exploding around me. I can’t make sense of any of it. And—I hate to say this—but you have something to do with that.”
Isaac’s hand traced Wyatt’s nose. It was a tender motion. For the first time, Wyatt forced himself to remember what it was Isaac had said about his own situation—why he was actually in Rhode’s Pike in the first place. His lips parted, waiting to ask.
But Isaac interrupted him, almost as though he didn’t wish the question to break into the air.
“Perhaps this isn’t a forever thing, and that’s okay,” he whispered. “I know you have an entire career brewing for you back in Los Angeles.”
The words felt almost like a smack. Wyatt swallowed.
“Ha. And what of your students? You’re just preparing to abandon them in New York? It’s not just me that’s got something, Isaac,” Wyatt returned. His eyes were playful, charged. He swept his finger across Isaac’s nipple, toying with the thick hairs. He kissed him again, letting Isaac know that he couldn’t get away from him that easily.
“Maybe fate brought us together. For whatever reason,” Wyatt continued. “I, for one, am a big believer in fate. Hell, I wouldn’t be right here with you now, if I hadn't followed some wayward hippies out of New Mexico.”
Suddenly, Wyatt’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He scrambled toward his pants, strewn along the bottom of the car, hunting. Isaac dropped a bit away from him, his eyes looking faraway.
“Sorry about that,” Wyatt said, delivering Isaac a crooked smile. “I have a bit of something in the works just now. Something that might change the course of my career. I’m on-edge.”
Isaac didn’t speak. Wyatt lit up his screen to find an email from Scott, his editor, explaining that he’d read the story and already hit “publish” that evening.
“Man, I’ve never seen our traffic spike up so quickly,” Scott explained via email. “Normally at this time of night, we have maybe two hundred fifty people reading, and that’s on a good day. But dammit, Wyatt, you were right. Right now, we have over five thousand readers, and the number is growing. I’m seeing people posting about it all over social media. The Venus 50. I can’t fucking believe it! Our numbers are out of control!”
Wyatt’s crooked smile crept wider, nearly swallowing his entire face. Feeling greedy, he clicked through to the website to find the article he’d written up just that afternoon—along with the title that Scott had apparently chosen, which said, “CRAZY TEXAN IN GHOST TOWN TAKES ON ENTIRE CULT.”
“Ha Ha!” Wyatt cried. He bucked back toward the window, sliding his feet to the ground before him. “This is absolutely insane.”
“What is?” Isaac asked.
Wyatt couldn’t yet explain. He scanned through the various social media posts, noting that several people had called him by name. “This Wyatt Masters is fucking rad,” one person wrote. “He just followed a cult out into the middle of Texas? He’s like Hunter S. Thompson, without the drugs.”
Wyatt felt his ego beaming up through his neck and head. When he blinked, he saw white spots.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Isaac asked, his voice bright. “You look like you just won the lottery or something.”
“It’s better than that,” Wyatt returned. Finally, he spun his phone toward Isaac, watching as he gripped it with his firm hands. He waited, expectant, while Isaac scanned the top of the article.
Slowly, his face changed. His cheeks sagged a bit. He drew his tongue along the edge of his bottom lip.
“You’re difficult to read!” Wyatt cried, his heart ratcheting around in his chest. “What do you think? Apparently, thousands and thousands of people have already read about it. I broke this story, Isaac!”
Isaac blinked again. His shoulders draped on either side of him. He looked void of reason or purpose, like a plastic bag in the wind. Wyatt longed for him to say something—anything that gave him a feeling that he appreciated his writing. It was his life’s work, dammit.
“Are you. Um.” Isaac began, stuttering. “Are you afraid your friends in the cult are going to know you broke the story?”
Wyatt hadn’t really thought about this. He swept his fingers across his chin, remembering that many of the cult members had passed along their cell phones as of late, ensuring that they could give themselves over to the “greater mind” of the community.
“I really don’t think they’re paying much attention to the internet,” he responded, his voice gritty and dry. He wanted to alert Isaac that he hadn’t responded in a manner that pleased him. “I imagine Everett might find out. I bet he’s got his phone still on him, probably in the pocket of his weird white robes. But it’s already too late.”
Isaac allowed his head to drop back on the seat rest. He flipped the phone back into Wyatt’s hands. “That old man,” he began. “He’s really…”
“He’s really something, isn’t he?” Wyatt continued, his voice fizzing. “I mean, he was the perfect piece to spin the entire article on. I couldn't have imagined a better character to come out of the door. He looked like he was, I don’t know, the old man from A Christmas Story? You know? Ebenezer Scrooge?”
Isaac cleared his throat. He reached down and grabbe
d his button-up shirt, sweeping his arms back into it. The night air was chilly, seeping in through the cracks in the car windows.
“I don’t know if I can sleep in here,” Isaac muttered, casting his eyes out the window. “It might be uncomfortable.”
Wyatt nodded, feeling a bit lost, his heart dipping lower in his chest. “We can head back to the hotel, if you want to.”
“I might sleep someplace else,” Isaac murmured, seemingly trying to divide the two of them. He yanked his pants up his thighs and snuck the button into its hole. “I just need to get some really good rest tonight. It’s been a strange few days.”
Wyatt didn’t speak. His thoughts pinged from ear to ear as he followed Isaac’s lead, slotting himself into his clothes. He felt a distance, like an enormous darkness, growing between them. When his elbow accidentally slotted against Isaac’s arm, Isaac shifted back, as though Wyatt’s skin was harmful, as hot as a stove.
The pair stepped from the car. With a sterile motion, Isaac smashed his finger against the LOCK button on his keys. The car beeped. Isaac’s foot swam out from where they stood, forcing them both into a pace that led them back toward the saloon.
“Why did you come to the saloon tonight?” Wyatt asked, his voice low.
“Hmm?”
It felt as though Isaac was several dimensions away from him, existing on a far different plane.
“I mean. You didn’t know for sure that I was there,” Wyatt returned. “It was all kind of fortuitous. But you must have gone to the saloon for a reason. Right?”
“Is that your journalistic mind, looking to peg me down?” Isaac asked. Sarcasm sizzled behind his voice. “Or what?”
Wyatt stopped walking. He gaped at Isaac, forcing him to turn around, scuff his boots across the cobblestones. It looked akin to an old-fashioned shoot-out—certainly an event the town of Rhode’s Pike had once seen frequently.
“You aren’t carrying a gun, are you?” Wyatt demanded, his voice low.
“No. I’m not carrying a gun, Wyatt,” Isaac returned, his eyes glittering. “Just because I’m from Texas, doesn’t mean I’m one of them.”
“Then do you want to tell me why your mood just changed like that? Want to tell me what the hell is going on? You said you were keeping a secret. You said that you couldn’t be fully honest. Well, that isn’t going to work for me,” Wyatt spat back.
They stood in tense silence. From the saloon, they heard a pleasant crash, the sound of busted glass. Someone cried out, “OOOMPAH!” in the style of the old Greeks, far and away from where they stood.
Then, another sound.
It was a crinkling. It felt as though it only existed in the back of Wyatt’s ears, curving around his brain like a worm chewing through the tissue. His eyebrows stitched together. Then, he noted that Isaac’s face changed, as well. His nose filled with the stench of smoke.
Something was on fire.
The hollers flung across the desert plains, echoing across the ghost town. Suddenly, it seemed that the stars above were blotted out, dusted over with smoke. Wyatt’s hand drew across his chest. He inhaled sharply, knowing everything was about to change.
“What is it?” he muttered.
“We have to run,” Isaac returned.
He sped around, darting toward the field on which the cult had centered their little universe. His feet stretched out far before him, propelling him swiftly past the saloon. Wyatt sprung forward, attempting to catch him. But it seemed Isaac was guided with an impossibly strong force.
Minutes later, they arrived, gasping, at the edge of the field. Hell brewed before them. Smoke billowed up from all sides of it, impossibly black, stirring together and wafting toward the sky. Screams, magnified with terror, echoed in Wyatt’s ears. It seemed that several of the cult tents had caught on fire, along with two of the RVs parked on the outer edge. Some of the longer beds of grass also burned, spitting orange flames into the air.
“What the hell…” Wyatt muttered.
Cult members spit out from the burning tents, seemingly in the midst of dreaming. They screeched, clutching their hair and spinning back toward the line of townhouses. The bottoms of their feet glowed bright white in the darkness. Wyatt hunted for any sign of Everett McLean in the hubbub, almost questioning whether or not the guy had been the reason for the fire in the first place. He imagined that Everett could spin the story however he pleased—that the beings from Venus had beamed down and discovered the cult to be unprepared. Thus, they’d returned to the sky, delivering a firm warning.
Suddenly, Isaac’s hand pressed hard against Wyatt’s chest. Wyatt blinked at him, his heart bolting with emotion. Only minutes before, their bickering had made him believe Isaac to detest him. But now, his eyes were enormous orbs, echoing back a feeling Wyatt couldn’t fully name.
“Wyatt, whatever happens—” Isaac began. “Whatever happens, just know that meeting you has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life.” He paused, biting at his bottom lip. “It’s very, very important that you don’t follow me, Wyatt. What I have to do, you cannot know about. I’m sorry if that’s cryptic. I’m sorry if you think we can’t be together, as a result. But just know, I think I care for you more than I’ve cared for anyone in years. You’ve reactivated something within me. And I need to thank you for that.”
He moved forward, kissing Wyatt with an unmatched intensity. Then, in a rush, he was gone, flinging across the open fields, darting between the enormous billows of smoke. Wyatt hadn’t the energy to scream. He dropped to his knees, watching.
Where did he think he was going?
What on earth did he mean, about what he had to do?
Wyatt muddled over various possibilities. Perhaps Isaac was somehow involved with the cult? But that didn’t make a lick of sense, as Isaac had said his father was amongst the town members. Plus, Everett had made a mockery of him not once, but twice. And Wyatt hadn’t seen a hint that it was a rehearsed mockery, something crafted together to show what might happen if a member of the cult fell out of line.
The fire continued to burn, inching toward the storage area, hungry to burn through the dried rice and beans and toilet paper and soap. Cult members attempted to salvage various items, hollering out for the other, less brave individuals to come help.
In the chaos, Wyatt spotted Marney—her hair whipping around behind her. She tugged at an entire rack of rice and beans, yanking it to the ground. She called behind her, waving her hands at several other members. Wyatt rushed forward, his energy frenetic. He ached with worry for Isaac, yet also felt a strange allegiance to the people who’d brought him there. He began to assist Marney, creating a pile of supplies far from the blaze. She didn’t speak, and only cast him a small glance of recognition. It didn’t matter who he was.
As he worked, members of the town of Rhode’s Pike stumbled from the saloon and their various shadowed houses, gaping at the fire. They drew a line across the main street, dotting their worn fingers along their hips, their mouths open.
It felt very much like the end of the world. The fire now threatened to tear through their town—a town that prided itself on living through its death, becoming a ghost. Wyatt yanked yet another bag of rice from the storage, hunkering back toward the line of houses. He felt it would be a long, long night.
Chapter Nine
Isaac
Isaac had a strange sense of foreboding the moment he spotted Wyatt’s article. It was clear to him that he should have fessed up about the situation with his father much sooner. Now, Wyatt was profiting off his father’s so-called “madness,” becoming the sort of journalist he’d always wanted to become. Isaac had been reminded of his father, of all that he was avoiding in sitting naked in the car with Wyatt, and had suddenly burned with it, knowing he needed to return to the ranch house.
But the fire had been a second indicator, one that had chilled him to the core. He sensed that the fire hadn’t been an accident, but rather an element of the greater situation at-hand. He kissed Wyatt—sens
ing he wouldn’t see him again, although he dearly wished he could—and then rushed between the fires, leaping over a burning tent and falling to the other side, rolling across the smoldering grass. Screams lashed out on either side of him. He ran with certainty, pressing toward the far end of the field. In the distance, he saw a torch, its fire blazing, whirling back and forth.
The man holding onto the torch was antiquated, curved forward, reeling back and forth. Smoke billowed around his head, making it difficult for Isaac to see the outline of his face. But as he drew further and further forward, he recognized the swagger to be none other than his father’s, Thomas Baxter.
As he bolted forward, Thomas Baxter again knelt into the brush at his feet, sweeping the torch across it. He seemed manic, wild. The fire crept along the tops of the dying grass, speeding toward yet another line of tents.
“DAD!” Isaac cried, taking a last sprint toward the man. With a jolt of adrenaline, he wrapped his hand around the edge of the torch, ripping it from his father’s hand.
The man fell back, faltering to his ass. He crumpled into himself, moaning. His arms wrapped around his knees, and he rocked himself back and forth, like a lost child. Isaac gaped at the burning torch, now in his own hands, wondering what to do next. The fire was now colossal, tearing through additional tents, pushing evermore toward the line of ghost town houses and main street. Luckily, the smoke had created a kind of wall between him and his father and the rest of the cult and town’s folk, making it difficult for anyone to see them. He prayed that nobody would draw closer for a peek.
“Dad, we have to get back to the house!” he cried, his voice nearly drowned out.
His father blinked up at him. His lips parted. They were cracked and gaping, bleeding a bit into his teeth. It was now that Isaac noted that the man was still wearing his blue pajamas, probably specially placed on him after Monica had helped him with a bath.