Archive of Our Own

It had been the first day of summer, and Kirk Hammett was sitting on his bike facing a giant plastic sign. His eyes scanned each letter and pushed up his glasses with one finger as his mouth pulled into a tight frown. 

FUTURE LOCATION OF NORTH WOODS MALL

COMING TO YOU MAY 6, 1977

PRIVATE PROPERTY! TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED!

He got off of his bike and rested it against the woven steel fence and hooked his thin fingers around the metal, peering through them to look at the thick forest behind it. He pressed close though that his forehead began feeling the digging of the metal into his skin. A part of him imagined pressing his body hard enough that his entire being would phase through and allow him onto the other side of the fence. 

Kirk hadn't known that they were building something in this area and supposed that they had placed the fence up when his school was more focused on tests and presentations. If he could, he would probably find some kind of part of the fence that wasn't reinforced with wire and slip through a forced hole, but he didn't didn't want to risk being found out by anyone that would probably tell the cops that he was there. He didn't want to be on the end of his father's wrath if the old man found out. 

The boy was saddened by this unforseen event, his brows tilting downwards as his frown deepened into a harsh scowl. The city had cut him off from his self-called sanctuary, an abandoned deer camp with a small makeshift "cabin" that was merely a shoddy little shelter with a dirt floor. The sanctuary was placed near a medium size creek that wasn't quite large enough to be considered a river, but it was eerily deep enough to wade through with the crystal clear water coming up just a little bit above the hips. He had taken care of the place when he first found it at age ten, when he had to find an escape from the constant war lands that he had to call home. Every summer was spent there in solace with his newest issue of Fangoria or sketching in the margins of his worn notebook. He had even stashed an old cassette player on one of the shelves of the cabin so he could bring his music with him to keep him company. 

It was all gone now and he had nowhere to hang out away from home during the summer. 

He shoved himself off of the fence again, going to his bike and sitting on top of it, pushing himself into a the beginnings of a ride and began to try and find a new place to stay for the day at least.

The library was still open for the summer and it was quiet and cold. It might have seem too nerdy to hang out at, but it would be a suitable second refuge for Kirk. They had tables and chairs too, so he could rest his arms comfortably instead of cricking his neck at an awkward angle from lying in the hammock he had put next to the cabin last summer. 

However, he was met with more bad news when he walked to the glass doors and found a sign taped to it, saying simply, "WATER MAIN BROKEN. LIBRARY CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE". 

The boy huffed irritably as he walked away with a small snarl on his lips. Biking around town in the summer heat looking for a place to stay until the street lights came on was not in his plan, as his bag of snacks and new comic book felt like a heavy weight in his backpack and his fingers were eager to eat some of the starchy delights and flip through the latest adventure of The Frankenstein Monster. 

He decided that the park would be an okay place, though it would be a little uncomfortable with the hot sun, but he figured there was enough shade from trees to sit in the grass and enjoy things for the time being. Indulge himself until the inevitable came to a head, just as it had done for most of his life.

He hummed a Motorhead song under his breath, his legs slowly moving up and down as he followed the sidewalk, moving to the road occasionally for the other occupants. He turned a corner and into one of the slightly more nicer neighborhoods, indicative by the sprawling beautiful trees that shielded the sidewalk from the sun and the larger variously shaped houses. Kirk only knew it was slightly nicer because the neighborhood wasn't as immaculate as the rich neighborhood on the other side of town, but it wasn't the small little cookie cutter houses that lied closer to the ground and had cracked driveways. 

He also knew that there were two older kids that lived in this area, two menaces who routinely bullied younger kids that crossed their paths. James Hetfield and Dave Mustaine, two unfortunates who happened to live under the same roof thanks to the married couple that took them in under the foster care program. Kirk didn't know what their lives were like before living in the area, but he heard the various stories that most kids came up with: their parents were murderers, they were crack babies, their parents were performing Satanic rituals, the boys themselves were a product of Satanic Ritual Abuse and that's why they were taken away from their parents. 

He didn't believe in it. He just knew that one day they would end up dead by their own actions. They would meet the wrong person and say the wrong thing, then bam. They would know their god through some sense of violence. 

Kirk wished he would be able to see it one day. He thinks it would make him feel better after they broke his nose and glasses last year. Today, however, he wasn't in the mood to deal with them and kept his head on a swivel as he kept an eye out for either boy. A flash of wild red hair. A blip of blonde beach waves. Hazel fox eyes. Wild dog blues.

Keeping his attention busy made him almost pass a huddled form sitting on the side of the curb. He pulled the pedals of his bike backwards, halting his bike and looking behind him to see a kid around his age with his arms wrapped around his knees and a head of wild brown hair. 

The boy knew it as a bad idea to stop in the middle of the street, as it was very close to where the older boys lived, but seeing the other kid unaware of the fact that someone on a bike just rushed past him and didn't pull his head once to check made him think that the kid had fallen asleep in a weird position outside. Or maybe he died like that?

Kirk licked his lips in interest at the thought of seeing if someone died like that. He had heard of Buddhist monks in Asia being mummified in a sitting position that were so well preserved that they looked like they were still alive. Of course, there would be nothing like that in America, but if the kid had indeed died like that...

He walked backwards with the bike under him, stopping until he was behind the boy.

"Hey." Kirk blurted, seeing if the boy would move. 

There wasn't any movement other than the soft shudder of the kid's curls. "Hey, are you alive? You know you're sitting on the curb, right."

There was finally motion as the boy raised his head and turned around, revealing reddened grey eyes behind thick heavy frames and a blushed face. Under his nose was wet and his lips appeared swollen, as if he were biting them repeatedly. "Huh?"

"You're sitting on the curb," Kirk repeated. "You could get hit by a car or something if they don't see you."

Compared to Kirk, the boy was slightly smaller than him. He wore a threatdbare t-shirt that swallowed his frame and sagged over him like an old flour sack. His arms, the boy noticed, were thin and sinewy with barely any hint of baby fat or conditioned muscle. 

The boy cleared his throat and unfurled himself to stand and face Kirk. He revealed more of his disheveled clothing with a holey pair of jeans and dirty mud-caked Chucks. "Sorry. Is this...your street or something?"

Kirk shook his head. "I don't live in this part. I live probably a few streets over. I figured you didn't wanna be roadkill or anything by some mailman or something."

The boy nodded, looking away and scratching absentmindedly at a scab on his arm. The conversation fell into an awkward silence, with Kirk switching which foot to rest on while still staring at the boy. It's when Kirk noticed that he's never really seen this boy around his school before. Granted, he didn't know *every* kid that set foot through the school doors, but from what he knew, he didn't particularly remember grey eyes and brown curls, especially with those glasses. His glasses weren't any different but the frames the boy wore were the very definition of coke bottles.

"You live around here?" He asked as he hopped off of the seat part of his bike and leaned forward to rest his forearms on the handlebars, staring deep into the kid with his deep dark eyes. It was part curiosity, part intimidation on his part, as he's been told by multiple people how unsettling his eyes were as they swallowed almost any shine and light that reflected off of them. 

The boy seemed to show his discomfort with the stare, as he tried to make eye contact but quickly avoided the direct gaze by looking off to the side. "Yeah. I mean...now I do. I didn't before yesterday."

"So where did you live then?" Kirk prodded.

"Uhm...in Redding," the boy sniffed, wiping away the little tears that remained on his ruddy cheeks. 

Kirk pursed his lip in thought. Redding was pretty big city, at least one of the bigger ones that he knew of, but it was an almost three hour drive between there and Auburn. It was weird to see a kid from Redding all the way out here. "How'd you get here?"

The boy's lip wobbled, followed by a sniffle, then he started to shudder and sob, shrinking into himself as he crouched low to the ground. Kirk glanced around as he worried his lip between his sharp little crooked fangs, hoping that James and Dave weren't lured in by the sound of a child in despair. 

"Hey, keep it down!" He hissed, hopping off of his bike and letting it fall onto its side as he crouched down in front of the boy. "Do you want to attract dickheads waiting to beat up the first crying kid they see?"

The boy looked up at Kirk with tears and snot running down his face. "What? There's more of them?"

"What, you mean you already have people kicking your ass?" Kirk asked. "You've gotta be trouble if you've already got people ready to kill you."

The boy shook his head. "No, it's just...my foster brothers, if you wanna even call them that...they're uhm...they're really mean. They're already calling me Newkid and Newfag and it's only been a day."

Kirk's eyes narrowed as he slowly put the pieces together between the neighborhood, the new boy, and the fact that he said "foster brothers". "No way...you're living with James and Dave?"

The boy's eyes widened as he quickly nodded, eager for someone to relate to what he knew. "You know them? Then you believe me when I tell you that they're--that they're dickheads! I've only been here for twenty four hours and they're already treating me like--like shit!"

Kirk shook his head lightly, knowing all too well that for some reason no other adult wanted to believe that the two teens were trouble. They would only walk away with a slap on the wrist and their victims would get a stern talking to about "tattle-telling" and bothering adults with tall tales. They even looked the part of ne'erdowells with their long rock 'n' roll hair styles and worn out band shirts. "I get it. No one wants to believe that they do stuff like that. It's just impossible to get anyone to believe us."

"I hate living here," the boy muttered as he shuffled around and went back to his spot on the curb. "I wish I just...I wish I were with my mom and dad."

"Why aren't you with them?" Kirk asked, hoping to get back on track with his investigation of this kid. 

The boy sighed and rested his sharp chin on his knees. "They're dead. From an accident. My aunt Marie was the only one to take me in and, well, here I am."

"Oh..." Kirk mumbled as he stayed crouched and close-by. He knew he should offer condolences, as his mom does when she learns of anyone dying, but...he didn't really feel anything knowing about this kid's parents dying. The boy knew that he should hop on his bike and go find another place to hang out. Leave this poor sad strange boy on this curb and never see him again. "What's your name?"

"...Jason," he sniffed.

"...Do you wanna help me go somewhere we shouldn't?"

It was fall break of November 1978 and the mall had not been built. In fact, nothing had been torn down, destroyed, or even planned out. Kirk didn't really care to know the details of why or how, he just cared that their sanctuary had been spared for now. He rode on his bike beside Jason, who had been out of sorts the whole day, his grey eyes hooded with a distant stare and his face pale and pallid. When Kirk had come over to ask if Jason wanted to hang out, the younger teenager looked like he didn't even register what the other boy had said until he repeated it again.

Dave and James still lived with Jason's aunt and uncle, but attended Sierra Community College in Rocklin for most of their time. They were still menaces of course, opting to bully Jason instead of other children. It only seemed right, seeing as he was their "little brother". Kirk just assumed that they were home on break as well and picking on the other boy to no end.

When they reached the familiar wire fence, they hid their bikes behind a large bush and entered through an opening they had made together years ago as kids. Walking on the worn trail, Kirk began rambling about the new movies he had watched with a wild look in his dark eyes, motioning each violent and gorey scene with emphasis using his hands and arms flailing wildly. 

"Oh! And then I snuck into the theater to watch this new one from Meir Zarchi called I Spit On Your Grave and its about this woman who goes to this house to write a novel and stuff and she gets raped by these four guys and she goes on a revenge killing spree and holy shit it's so cool!" Kirk exclaims. "There was so much blood in it and she does the gnarliest shit to the guys like, she gave this one guy a handjob but when he's about to cum, she fucking cuts off his dick!"

Jason nods, but doesn't respond with any words as he stares at the path below their feet. Kirk's words drift away into a quiet mutter of the rest of the film, ending on the scene where the woman starts the motor of the boat and disemboweling the last of her assaulters. The two teenagers arrive at the creek, with Kirk excitedly pulling out a mixtape he made himself and went inside of the cabin to retrieve the cassette player. When he placed the player on a stump and placed the tape inside, he pressed play and went to his hammock, brushing out the fallen leaves from inside and then setting his backpack down on the ground.

All our times have come

Here, but now they're gone

Seasons don't fear the Reaper

Nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain...

After rummaging around for his new sketchbook and pencil, he rolled inside of the hammock and flipped to the page he had been working on which was a sketch of a woman he had seen on a magazine, with wild black hair and beautiful make-up. She looked like the perfect ideal vampire and he wanted to draw her from memory. It was a few minutes into his drawing and definitely after Blue Oyster Cult had finished when he looked up and saw that Jason hadn't even made a move from where he was standing, his hair cascading across his face as he stood there in silence. 

Kirk sat up in the hammock, placing his sketchbook to the side and looked at his friend with a concerned look. "Hey, what's up? You've been acting...really quiet today."

Jason bit his lip, looking at the other boy with familiar grey eyes that were rimmed with a dark shadow beneath them, as if he hadn't slept at all throughout the night. "Just...I don't know..."

The older of the two tilted his head slightly, then motioned for him to join him on the hammock. Jason's brows knitted together in hesitation as he stepped forward, stopped as if he were doubting his actions, then sauntered towards Kirk and gingerly placed himself on the hammock and placed his backpack on the ground next to his friend's. He hissed between his teeth, his eyes closed tight in pain as he tried to relax himself and look at the other boy.

"You okay?" Kirk asked once more, his eyes scanning him over for any blood or injury. "Did James and Dave beat you up again?"

At the mere mention of the two, Jason shuddered and wrapped his arms around his middle, shaking his head rapidly. "No, no, they didn't...but..."

The older boy sat quietly, letting Jason have as much room as he wanted to collect his thoughts and think about what he was going to say. There was a time he remembered that he didn't want to be this sort of person to anyone. Didn't want to be the shoulder to cry on, didn't want to attatch himself to the dramatics of strangers. He wanted to drift in and out of a room as silently as possible, like a cat visiting rooms with nowhere to call a bed on a permanent basis. 

Jason, however, was different. He was a fascinating person with a history that seemed almost storybook in nature, something Kirk could only see in those daytime family friendly programming, in a local tv broadcast special where a mother and father were together and loved their child dearly. It was all ripped away in a drunk driver encounter and now he was forced to live in a hell with unattentive guardians and two chaotic hellraisers. The older boy found this eerily intriguing, asking him what it was like to have parents who loved him fondly, what it was like to not wake up in the middle of the night to terrified screams calling for help in a tongue they were cut from since birth. 

The younger boy would take it in stride, answer the questions that plagued his brain. In turn, Jason asked about his interest in the dark, in the macabre, in the disgusting. He did this without judgement, not even when Kirk showed him his shoebox filled with skeletons of animals, not even when the older boy would show him the pictures of autopsy diagrams copied from medical books in the local library, not even when he showed him a bootleg video of a woman getting flogged and hit with paddles embedded with nails. 

Jason never said a word of fear. Never said a word that would dismiss him. He never once said a bad thing to Kirk and accepted the other boy. 

So Kirk would wait forever for the boy to say what was wrong. He would never disparage Jason from speaking his mind about what was ailing him. 

It took a while for the younger boy to do so, however. The fall wind sent chills down their spine, even when the sun was still shining among the crystalline waters of the creek, with its soft babbling over the large rocks that dotted the edge of the water and jutted out from the surface. The insects that were common in the fall were sparse and few, none bothered the boys however, and they simply hovered close to the creek, darting in and out of their line of sight. 

"Dave and James did...something to me last night," Jason finally said, breaking the silence that surrounded them, allowing himself a moment of reprieve before explaining the events. "They were acting weird all day yesterday, like...they weren't beating me up or picking on me or anything like that. They just kept staring at me a lot."

Kirk didn't need a picture painted for him. He had an idea of what was to come, what his friend was going to tell him. He bit his tongue, however, to stop himself from making Jason stop before he could explain. 

The younger boy's eyes became glistening, distant, as he recounted the night before when he decided to go to bed early to avoid the deep odd gazes that James and Dave gave him. He wanted to be away from those eyes, locked away in the solace of his room to try and escape whatever they had planned. 

"Nothing happened for a while, it was quiet and dark in my room, so I thought that they decided to give up what they had planned," Jason sighed as he used the nail of his index finger to scrape and prod at a stray fraying hole that embedded itself in the thigh of his jeans. "I don't really remember what time it was when they came into my room. I was just...jolted awake, I guess. I remember one of them holding down my arms with their hand, then my other hand was being pinned down with their elbow while they held a hand to my mouth."

Kirk's eyes bore deep into the side of Jason's head, as if he stared hard enough, he could burrow deep into the scalp and bone, into his grey matter so he could see for himself. See if he could feel the pressure of someone stronger than him holding him down. He licked his lips as the other boy described the way fingers worked their way up his bare stomach, nails scratching and digging into his skin and catching hard on his small nipples. At the mention of them, Jason's hand rose and ghosted along his chest, as if to feel the memory of those fingertips on him.

"They started uhm...they started to..." Jason hesitated, his hand moving from his chest and up to the base of his neck, his long fingers resting there. His shoulders shuddered with every soft inhale, as did the little curls that made up his frizzy mane. "I don't...Kirk, they--they started to...oh my god..."

Jason's mouth slowly stretched open in a silent cry as he curled inward on himself, his hand still resting on his throat. Kirk could only watch and stare as his friend broke down completely into a sobbing, heaving mess. He raised a hand up, hesitantly stopping himself from touching the other boy's shoulder before gently placing his fingers then palm on him. 

Biting his lip, he told him that he didn't need to say anything else. 

Later that night, Kirk's hand, the very one that offered reassurance, was wrapped around his hard leaking cock as his mind swam with the visions of James and Dave fucking Jason while he cried.

Spring had fast approached with blooming flowers and trees filled again with fresh, green leaves. It was 1981 and the mall still had not been built. The company that owned the property and the plans to build said mall had a falling out with almost everyone involved, leaving the fenced land left in the air. 

The fence remained tall and mighty with its twisted metal, but it was now being consumed by nature with vines and roots taking hold of it like scaffolding towards the sun. The sun that had once warned a very tinier version of Kirk was now weathered and worn by the passing of time, with the letters slowly peeling off or painted out by random teens armed with spraypaint.

Kirk glanced at the sign, holding no fear in its false promises and leaned towards the radio to turn up the stereo to fill his car with the harsh and loud sounds of The Misfits he had placed on his curated mixtape, one of many that had been stashed away in a shoebox on the passenger side floor.

He had called Jason earlier that week to wish him a happy birthday, since he couldn't really come over on a weekday with his new university semester schedule.

However, Jason didn't sound quite right over the phone. His friend sounded more...distant, yet collected with a soft cool tone in his voice that sounded too different to the bouncy cheery nature the other boy usually had in his voice. He had chalked it up to the days of them being separated, with Jason still in school finishing his senior year and Kirk at UC Davis. He didn't want to admit that the distance might have broken their friendship, but he had thought that he had kept up with Jason enough to where that wouldn't happen.

He didn't want to face the possiblity that he had failed.

The sound of clicking bike spokes close to his window caught his attention, and when he looked in the rearview mirror, it was Jason parking his bike close to his car. Kirk smiled elatedly until it fell into a confused thin line as he saw how absolutely pale the other boy looked, with deep, dark under eye circles surrounding the storm cloud grey of his eyes. His hair seemed to match with its appearance seemingly greasy and flat, as if it hadn't been washed in days. The older boy got out of the car a little too fast, spooking Jason.

"Shit!" He gasped, holding a hand to his chest. "You scared me, dude."

"I could say the same about you," Kirk muttered. "Dude...are you okay?"

Jason glanced at him with a forlorn stare, then made a soft sound behind his closed lips as he hopped off of his bike and pulled down the stand with his foot, his hands hovering slightly to stop if it had tipped over. He looked to Kirk and offered a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Some birthday, huh? Kinda sucks that we have to meet up on weekends now."

"Yeah..." Kirk muttered. "I mean, it's spring break for me, so we can hang out together more if you want? To make up for missing your big day."

Jason nodded as he dug his hands in his denim jacket pockets. "Yeah, eighteen. I'm a big man now."

"Did you ever turn in your application?" Kirk asked as they both began to lean against the side of his car. "You can join me at UC Davis, you make pretty good grades enough to just go there...and since you'll be eighteen when you get there, you don't have to listen to whatever your aunt and uncle say and you don't have to see James or Dave at holidays anymore. You can just hang out with me at my apartment."

The older boy watched as Jason's shoulders began to sag, then straighten as he pushes himself off of the car, looking at him with a wide blank stare. "Let's go to the sanctuary."

Jason didn't wait for Kirk as he already started to saunter towards the bushes that shielded any passerby from the existence of the hole in the fence, made bigger by the two boys' growing bodies. Kirk sighed as he followed his friend past the fence and onto the familiar dirt trail, made even deeper by their repeated comings and goings over the span of years. Every tree, though different, always seemed familiar above him, only growing bigger as he aged. It was when they passed one of the familiar ones did he know that they were near the old deer camp and it felt like coming back to a warm home when he saw the cabin and the weathered hammocks. The creek was still as beautiful as it ever was, with clear waters that would still be too cold for a dip as it sung its comforting babbling.

As Kirk stepped close to the edge of the creek, he took in the sight of his childhood abode, his eyes fondly watching the trees across the water sway gently in the breeze. Soon, summer would arrive and insects would be swarming the area with lively grand splendor, as would the various small critters that would make their way through. 

It was then that he groaned and smacked himself on the forehead. "Shit, Jase, I forgot! I got you a present but I think I left it at my apart--Jase?"

The other boy was nowhere to be seen around him. Kirk whirled around, his eyes scanning the forest for any sign of where he had went to. He didn't have to look long before Jason called for him to come inside of the cabin. The older boy stared at the delapidated wood that was known as a cabin, the wood falling from different parts of the outer walls, the roof threatening to cave in with its holes. 

Hesitantly, he began to walk towards the structure, biting his lip as he took careful, nervous steps. He raised a hand to press against the old wood of the doorway, his fingernails digging into the softer parts of rot. The inside was darkened by shadows, but thanks to the holes that had formed, they offered a little bit of light. There was the centermost part of the cabin, with some empty bottles of stolen liquor and various sorts of leftover trash that they had forgotten to take with them at one point. On the furthest wall was a shelf that held the old cassette player that had not been working some time ago and some more empty bottles and cans of beer and soda. On one end were some toy soldiers, two plastic dinosaurs and stolen diorama scenery to create a silly scene. Kirk remembered how they had placed it there with careful hands and theoretical boy logic surrounding which dinosaurs would make the best pet to eat people. 

Off to the other part of the room was a slightly smaller doorway leading to a darkened hovel of a room. Kirk tended to avoid that one, though he figured that when this deer camp was more livelier with active users, it was probably used for storing food. It didn't stop it from being so unsettling with its pitch black darkness. 

"Kirk?"

"I'm coming..."

The older boy took a step, adjusting his glasses on top of his nose as he did so, and crouched slightly as he entered the doorway. The light from the doorway illuminated Jason somewhat, but Kirk could make out his form on the dirt floor, his legs bent and held close to his torso. It was reminiscent of when they had first met on the curb of the road.

"Jase..." Kirk muttered as he crouched and hugged his knees. "What's going on?"

The younger boy's face remained placid, his grey eyes focused on something behind his knees as he held it in his hands. Kirk tried to crane his neck to see, but there wasn't enough light to see what it was. They waited in silence for his answer, with the other boy ending up sitting cross legged to avoid cramping his calves. 

"Have you ever seen someone die, Kirk?"

Jason's eyes lifted away from his knees and hands, looking straight at Kirk with a gaze that sent shivers down the other boy's spine. They were piercing, almost cold and distant yet remained on him with no shine of light in the depths of his irises or pupils. Kirk's mouth fell slightly as his brows furrowed when he stared straight back into those grey depths. 

"We...I mean..." Kirk drifted, licking his dry lips, "You know I have some videotapes of that sort of stuff...but no. Not in person."

The other boy nodded, hummed in thought as his foot started to tap in an anxious rhythm on the dirt floor. "Have you wanted to see someone die?"

Kirk felt sweat build on the back of his neck in the room, despite the shield from the sun and humidity inside. His breath felt light, as if he had stopped breathing altogether. He had indulged his friend in his more stranger ideas and desires, but only when they were greening out or drunk off their asses in Kirk's basement bedroom. He had told him how he wanted to go to school to become someone that dealt with bodies to "see what organs looked like and compare them to the special effects". To answer Jason, he nodded dumbly, his eyes boring deep into Jason just as hard.

"Jason...what are you planning?" Kirk asked. "Is it about James and Dave? Your aunt and uncle?"

There was a bitter sorrow that crossed the other boy's face, something that settled bitterly at the bottom of Kirk's stomach. He was immediately thinking the worst, that they were out there in the forest while the cops were creeping in with their weapons loaded and aimed at the cabin with an intent to kill.

Jason started to sniff quietly, his brows furrowing together as his lips pulled into a devastated sob. "Kirk...I just can't fucking do it anymore. I can't--I won't live in that fucking house anymore."

Kirk's mouth opened to ask more questions, to demand to know if he had killed his family, but he stopped as the other boy began to shakily reveal a pistol, gleaming in the low light with a gunmetal black. He moved forward, reaching out to Jason but was stopped by his friend screaming at him to back off. He slowly did as he was told, returning back onto his ass with baited breath.

"Where did you..."

"I stole it from James," the other boy panted, raising it with fingers that shuddered in fear. "I stole it from his bedroom."

Jason's breath became heavier, more rapid as he switched which hand held the gun, staring at it with an intensity as he continued to sob. "I don't want to fucking live anymore. I'm tired. I'm so *fucking* tired. I hate it when they put their mouths on me, I hate it when they touch me like that...I don't want to feel them anymore."

"Jase, you're eighteen now! You can come with me!" Kirk blurted. "You don't have to go back there! I'll take you with me, you can get a GED and you can go to college with me! Please, for fucks sake don't do this!"

The other boy shook his head, sending his greasy curls twisting around him in a dirty halo. "You don't fucking get it, you don't get it, you don't get it...I'm always gonna feel them, Kirk. I'm always gonna see them behind my eyes...in my dreams...around every corner of every room...that's why I want out. I can't---I can't stop thinking and feeling them. I'm never going to stop."

Jason's eyes connected with Kirk and they looked strained, as if he were a man in a desert begging for a sip of water. "As a friend--As my only friend...please... just...just let me go. Let me go and don't tell anyone where I am. I want to go..." 

Kirk opened his mouth to protest, to say anything from dissuading him from taking the gun and hurting himself. 

It happened before he could register a complete thought as he saw Jason raise the muzzle of the gun and pointed it at himself, inserting it between his wet lips and nearly swallowing it down to the trigger guard. With one quick movement, the boy pulled with his index finger and a loud bang filled the enclosed space. 

There was shrill ringing, like miniscule bells that made Kirk's ears feel almost numb as his eyes followed the other boy's arm fall to the wayside and his head tilt close to his shoulder.

Kirk could only watch as the blood began to flow from Jason's nose and spill onto his shirt while red began to fill the sclera of his dull grey eyes. The gun had fallen from his limp fingers and onto the dirt floor with a soft thud while the ringing still sung its shrill sound throughout the older boy's ears. His eyes could only focus on Jason's head and watched as it tilted to the side at an odd angle, something unnatural about it that made his skin prickle. On the wall, he saw a sticky dark starburst of brain matter and bits of hair and skull splattered among the meat of it all. 

He had a feeling it would stain.

Kirk could only sit there and watch his friend, once full of life, full of sorrow and agony, now quiet and eerily at peace. He curled up into himself, drawing his knees close to himself as he listened to the drops of blood spilling from his shirt and skin fall to the slowly growing pool beneath him with a soft plip plip plip. 

Memories could only come to mind of how Jason was when he wasn't saddened by the events in his home, remembered how big his smile would become to where he had mouth lines at the tender age of fourteen. Maybe that was indicative of how worn the boy's soul had become, that it became so defeated that it would seep out of his skin and appear as wrinkles or as early white hairs. Kirk rested his cheek on his knee, staring at Jason's body while trying to recount better memories that didn't involve holding his hair back while he vomited after recounting a night of abuse. 

It didn't help that those memories were followed by the sickening loop-de-loop in his stomach as he recalled the nights he would touch himself while picturing those moments in his mind. How soft, red, and burning Jason's skin would feel after a beating, how his lithe and muscular body would writhe deliciously while tears streamed down his face. There were many a time where Kirk would indulge in his darker fantasies, looking at a picture of an autopsy and imagining Jason's face on the body, imagined digging his hand through the vivisection and feeling the organs that once held life in the palm of his hand. 

There was just something about Jason that looked prettier that way, pale and with eyes glazed over with white. The lightened freckles that were kissed all over his skin would disappear, but his beautiful curls would remain around his head like a halo made of the color of dampened winter leaves. The grey of his eyes would fade, but Kirk could admire the muscles that once made up the vessel that held his friend's soul, feel where they had hardened with constant pushing of bikes and climbing trees. 

Kirk felt bad for thinking of his friend that way. Despite his interests in the darker side, he still held his friend in a tall place in his heart and now...it was empty. 

Save for his body.

He licked his lips as he unfurled himself, stretching his limbs as he got on all fours, and began slowly crawling towards Jason's body. Some part of him was scared that it was a prank. That Jason just...did something, had money for some catalogue that specialized in Halloween effects or raided a horror movie supplier. He would pop back to life and say that it was a birthday prank.

That he wouldn't kill himself. That he was going to college with Kirk. That his aunt and uncle believed him when he said that Dave and James were monsters and that they were sent to jail. That his parents hadn't died in a car accident six years ago. 

Jason wouldn't ever leave him.

All doubts and wishes disappeared, however, when his fingers touched Jason's hand and it felt...not cold, at least not yet. He couldn't explain how he knew that his friend was very much dead, he didn't think anyone had a single answer for the sensation of knowing that there was no soul underneath once thrumming and warm flesh. He very much knew that Jason was gone. 

In Kirk's shock, he began to intertwine his fingers with the other boy's, feeling the calloused pads of pale skin contrast with his. The muscles there were wiry, once strong and useful. He had seen these very digits dig into earth, grip at the bark and limbs of trees and press against bloodied skin made from accidents. Jason's hands were kind yet strong, just as he had been determined yet gentle in voice and demeanor.

There was a point in time where he had wanted to feel those hands on his own body, feel Jason's body over him, controlling the scene as they would explore nude bodies, touch and prod at long healed over scars that told stories both familiar and heartbreaking. Kirk would not have rushed him, just let him be, let him have the chance to experience something on his own and without the horrific scratching and bites of the wolves that constantly surrounded him in his sleep.

Kirk, in some strange capacity, began to think of what he could give to Jason posthumously. He could give him the gentleness he deserved after death, let him experience the love he would never have now that his soul was long departed. He released Jason's hand and scooted back, beginning to take off his shirt and unbuckle his belt, shedding off his clothes in a slow candor.

With heavy breaths, Kirk set his clothes to the side, folded up ever so neatly in a tight square. His mom would be proud of him for doing so. He rose to his feet once more, straightening out as best as he could in the small dark space. Turning around, he faced Jason's body once more, right where he had died. 

The brunette rolled his lips between his teeth, wearing at the flesh with his crooked front teeth and nipping at it with his sharp little fangs. An unfettered tremble shook though his body as if he were cold. His skin prickled with goosebumps as he padded towards Jason, kneeling down and grimacing at the little hard pebbles that dug into his scarred knees. Panting, hot breaths filled the air as his hands began to lift towards the dead boy's jeans, nimble yet graceless thin fingers began to lift the hem of his shirt and go for the brass button and fly. Unhooking, unzipping, his brows raised up as he let out a quiet moan as he saw the soft bulge of cock underneath cloth. 

His lips fell open as he used his index finger to pull down the waistband, revealing the mass of pubic hair, followed by the beginnings of a shaft. As more of Jason's cock was revealed, Kirk couldn't help but admire the girth, the length the other boy had. They had gone skinny dipping in the creek during summers, but the older boy had been quick to not sit and stare at his friend, immediately turning his head once the water would recede past the v lines of his hips. Now, however, he could sit back and admire as he hooked the stretchy fabric underneath the other boy's balls, taking in how heavy they both were in his hand. His cock was limp, surprising Kirk, but it didn't make it any less exciting as he used his fingernail to trace down the length of cooling flesh, feeling the veins hidden beneath foreskin. When his nail reached the little sliver of head peaking from the thin flesh, he hooked his finger under the foreskin, pulling it back and staring in awe at how much it could stretch.

Kirk released his foreskin then wrapped his warm hand around Jason, his fingertips barely ghosting each other as he gave the dead flesh a few strokes, his eyes glued on the way the thin membrane would briefly cover the cockhead, then pull back to reveal dark pink flesh. It was a real shame he couldn't have done this for Jason when he was alive, though he was sure that the other boy wouldn't have liked being touched at any point in his life.

With some unsteady ease, he backed off, resting on his haunches as he pursed his lips in thought. He didn't want to penetrate Jason because he didn't want to cause him any fear, even in death. He had enough of that when he had been alive. A soft inhale, then a short huff of breath followed as he tried to remember what he had seen boys like him do in the dirty magazines he liked to flip through, ones he had stolen behind his usual horror paraphenalia.

Kirk rested his forehead against Jason's neck, inhaling the smell of blood and sweat that lingered on Jason's neck as he felt the other boy's cock fill him. He whimpered gently as his own cock rubbed against the biting little teeth of the denim's zipper, but he could only hiss in pleasure as he lifted his hips slightly, then brought himself down once more. He wrapped his arms around the body's shoulders, using him for leverage as he lifted himself once more and began to ride him with a slow, rolling pace.

A flaccid cock wasn't the best thing to have sex with, much less a dead body, but Kirk didn't care as he felt the head of Jason's cock brush against the sweet spot inside him, sending shivers throughout his body as he threw his head back. His thighs ached as he continued to spear himself, gasping and feeling sweat began to spill from his scalp and slide down his neck, beading down and collecting into large droplets on his bare chest.

It didn't take long for Kirk to come into his ecstacy, chasing it with building speed until he suddenly stopped, his thighs and shoulders trembling as his mouth opened in a silent cry, his seed spilling onto Jason's bare stomach. He huffed, rolling his hips a few more times before raising them to have Jason's cock pop out of his stretched hole. He groaned at the burning sensation it left, but he rested his head once more on Jason's shoulder, placing a kiss there and whispering a soft 'sorry'.

After coming down from his high, he tucked Jason's cock away and walked out of the small room, leaving his clothes in the pile close by. In the sunlight, he could see where Jason's blood had stained his tan skin. Grimacing, he walked out of the cabin and stepped towards the creek, pausing at the edge to dip one toe in and shivering slightly at the ice cold left from winter.

Taking a deep breath in, he placed one foot into the water, feeling the sensation of softened mud between his toes and encasing his sole. Biting his lip, he placed his other foot in front of the other, not bothering to acclimate his body as he began to make giant outward steps until he got to the part of the creek where it became deeper. He yelped as he dipped his body further into the water, landing his knees into the mud. His body felt as if the air was knocked out of him and he knew it would take forever before he could get used to the shocking cold, so he quickly washed the blood off of himself, making sure to rinse his hair, his neck, his arms and legs, then began to wade back towards the edge. The cool spring air did not help as he walked back into the cabin and grabbed his clothes, taking a glance at Jason's body before walking back out.

He quickly put his clothes back on, ignoring the sticky sensation of fabric on wet skin, he gathered what little they had brought and paced himself on the trail back to the hole in the fence, his mind feeling light and blank.

As soon as he reached the hole and crouched through, he was met with his car still waiting off to the side. A strange feeling of guilt washed over him once he saw Jason's bike still resting against the body of his car.

The world felt as if it had fell on his shoulders as he leaned against the fence to sob and cry.

Two days into Jason's death, police were placing missing posters around their town. Kirk could only stand and stare at one that was taped to the side of a light post. His dark eyes were glazed over as he took in the picture that they chose, noting that the eye color was written as 'blue'. That was partially true. The younger boy's eyes were an icy grey that appeared blue in certain lights and pictures, but peering deep into them would give away it's natural grey, the color of a cloudy winter sky.

From what his mother said, Jason's aunt and uncle knew something was wrong when he didn't come home that night. They couldn't place a missing persons report until after twenty-four hours had been up. He was eighteen now, the police had reasoned. He was possibly enjoying his newfound adulthood, they had told the concerned guardians.

No one in town seemed to really care about Jason. It was the eighties, the height of children running away from homes in pursuit of another life away from the horrors of suburbia. Jason did have dreams of leaving Auburn, dreams that involved something other than the provincial life.

Kirk, however, was preoccupied as he rode his bike to the sanctuary. He decided to leave his car at home, telling his mother that he was tired of driving everywhere and wanted to go out for a ride.

Before he left the house, she couldn't help but wrap him in a soft, warm embrace and kiss his forehead, whispering gentle Tagalog into his curls, something about looking for Jason he was sure.

Shame fluttered lightly in his gut as his mind thought to how his gaze lingered after defiling Jason's body, how the heavy licks of arousal stirred in his gut compared to the memory of laying under sunlight with Jason while they both laughed at absolutely nothing after finishing what was left of their weed stash.

Kirk could smell it from outside of the cabin. The rot. The scent of fetid rotten flesh. He should be gagging. He should leave this place alone, let it rot and fester until everything was gone entirely.

The strangest part was that the smell made his mouth absolutely water.

Curiosity won over his need to run as his feet carried him to the cabin, the smell growing ever so stronger as his stomach rolled with anxiety and the desire to vomit. His physical body was telling him to back off with the instinctual need to get away, run from a body carrying disease and rot. A deeply dug habit from ages and ages of old that told him that rot would make him sick, rot would make the people sick. People could die from the rot...

Inside the room, there were flies. The sound of them droning around him, around Jason's body, would become a crescendo of many as he stepped inside, then quiet down into a dull roar as they surrounded the both of them in the dark.

Kirk could only stare and watch as Jason's body was littered with flies, and when he peered a little closer towards the other boy's face, he could see the off white, almost yellow little squirming bodies of maggots hanging from lips that were once a soft pink, now an ashen white. He felt his stomach roll uncomfortably, making his throat tighten and his mind becoming more aware of his uvula and tonsils. The flesh squishing together behind his tongue, the very muscle between his teeth that felt so swollen and simultaneously touched every part of his mouth.

Gagging, he coughed and looked away from the body, his small body producing unnatural gravely tones as his whole body heaved with urgency to release his body of toxins that didn't exist inside him. His mouth filled with saliva as he drooled uncontrollably, his mouth hung open as it spilled from his lips and plopped onto the dirt floor, collecting in small darkened circles of now damp soil.

When he got a hold of himself, Kirk wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and looked back at the body once more, seeing that nothing had changed aside from the rot and decay. Jason was still slumped over in a position of where he had shot himself, the gun was still off to the side of his thigh.

Kirk began to ask himself why he had come here. Why had he come to see the rot in person. Was it because it was Jason? Or was it because of his deep desire to feel that rot, to smell the decay deeper than behind a mask of formaldehyde and plasticine. He got on his knees and crawled, just as he had done two days before, and brought his hand to feel how stiff Jason's body was behind the fabric of his clothes. It was such a strange feeling, stranger than it had when he had been freshly dead. It was hollow, yet there was some give in the flesh indicative of the start of swell from gasses building up in the cavity. Jason's body had at least a few more days, possibly a week before liquified intestines and fluid would start to seep out from his different orifices or his skin would start to split from the bloat. If the slowly rising unnatural heat in the next few days were to actually happen as the weather forecast had predicted, it would speed up the process.

Keeping his hand there, he questioned to himself whether he wanted to do this or if he would back out, go back home and spend the rest of his break in his bedroom until the lull and drone of college called him back to push his nose into books. Swallowing, he looked back at the body, his mouth watering once more as the rot called to him harder, sending shivers down his spine.

He pulled his hand away, then began to pull and tug at Jason's clothes, unbuttoning, unzipping until the body was fully nude. Maggots dotted at his flesh, moreso around his hair and scalp as they ate away at his open brains, or at least what was left in the cavity. Kirk was surprised that they had not eaten at his eyes yet, but was corrected immediately when he saw a maggot worm its way from the corner of the socket, waving back and forth as if in a greeting.

Kirk pushed away the urge to gag as he scrambled off to the side, taking off his own clothes and haphazardly throwing them to the side. Sitting on his haunches, he stared at the prone body, watching as flies buzzed on Jason, then landed on him briefly before flying away. Carefully, he crawled close to Jason's body, his fingers touching the plane of stiff flesh and running each finger against the muscles.

His fingers pressed on the swell of the body's tummy, pressing in slightly before releasing and watched it fill back in. He thought that if he stared long enough, he could see little squirming of life underneath the pale skin.

Kirk's gaze went to Jason's cock, seeing that it too had not changed much. The flesh still looked all the same, plump with just a paleness that matched the rest of his body. His fingers traced against the foreskin, his nail running over where the veins used to be. It was all too smooth to him now, almost like a silicone toy from the cheap section of a sex shop.

Repeating the motions he made on his first encounter, as a way to work out his nerves, he hooked his nail under the foreskin and pulled it back, only to hiss in surprise as he reeled back, the urge to vomit making itself apparent once more at the pit of his stomach.

He thought he had been mistakened, but when he went back to Jason's cock once more, pulling back the membrane of skin, there was a clump of familiar yellow insects wriggling away, eating at the rotted flesh there in their little protective shield of flesh. He could only watch in morbid fascination as he watched them writhe and pulse with life, some of them dropping as he pulled the foreskin to bring it closer to himself to get a better look in the low light.

His tongue ran heavy over the crooked fang of his tooth, pressing there as he watched the little maggots pulse. A heaviness began to grow at the bottom of his stomach, something dark and wanting with a sick curiosity. It wasn't unwarranted, and it wasn't pushed back. So far, his curiosity had been sated many times, far too many for some, but not enough for Kirk.

Never enough for Kirk.

Releasing the foreskin, he rose shakily onto his knees and straddled Jason's thighs, placing a knee on both sides and spreading himself wide and open. He placed his fingers in his mouth, his eyes staring at Jason's blank face as he sucked on them, running his tongue over the digits. He made sure to coat them with enough saliva before popping them out from between his lips and slowly brought them towards his hole. Sticking one, he felt himself start to fall forward, catching himself by placing a hand on the ground and coming face to face with the body's cock. He continued his minstrations, bringing his finger in and out as he now stared at the flaccid cock. Knowing now what lied underneath the skin, he noticed how the thin skin now moved and undulated as the maggots were feasting on their food made of dead flesh.

Dickeaters, his mind supplied without prompt.

He stuck a second finger in, working himself slowly and patiently, adding more until he got up to four fingers. Once he was finished scissoring and stretching himself, he pushed himself up and scooted himself further up Jason until he was resting on the belly, breathing in shakily as he swallowed with a deep seated hesitation.

Kirk could stop this now. He could stop. He wanted it to stop.

Spitting into his hand once more, he reached behind him and worked his saliva laden fingers along the dead cock, feeling the foreskin pull back slightly. Little gentle squirming maggots dropped from the cock, onto his hand and rolling off of the digits in sporadic increments. His stomach rolled once more, both with a heated desire and a sickening agony that painfully throbbed with a jolt.

Raising his hips, he held the cock in his hand, nudging the maggot laden cockhead against the tight furl of muscle, then slowly began to sink down upon Jason's cock. He moaned, whimpering with a sound that was more pained than pleasure. As he sunk the cock deeper and deeper inside of himself, he swore he could feel the maggots squirm and writhe inside of him, moving and undulating in his hole.

Kirk's cock was fully hard and erect, and just at the mere thought of the little insects squirming inside of him, his dick twitched in interest, a pearl of pre building at the tip and spilling with splendor. Throwing all caution out the window, he began to ride himself brutally on the body's cock, releasing wanton moans and whines, uncaring for anyone who would hear, be they human or animal or even gods.

He himself felt that he wasn't even human anymore as he continued to ride and roll his hips fervently. He was now nothing but a mere beast searching through rot and disease for something edible, some sustanence to aid them. He breathed heavily, his chest rising and falling as he speared himself repeatedly. Opening his eyes, he looked down at Jason, seeing his body move with each bounce he made. Any rational thought was gone as he leaned forward, dug his hand through the slush of liquid, brain matter, and maggots and rubbed it all over his body, screaming in pure ecstacy as his nose filled with the putrid stink of rot and the sensation of the wriggling maggots encase his body.

He wanted more. He needed more.

Kirk glanced down at his hand, seeing the maggots wave and squirm in panic in a miasma of disease. It was almost a blur when he took his hand and fisted his cock rapidly, spreading the filth all over his cock and watching the flushed red of his dick become coated with the disgusting mix. It was almost too much, with the maggots coating him, the maggots inside of him, the dead man beneath him and the smell of rot surrounding him.

He was bathed in filth. He had become baptized in the pure feeling of death.

He was more than a human, more than a mere animal.

And when he came, his vision filled with pure white as his seed spilled heavy and full across Jason's chest and belly. With a quiet thud, he collapsed on top of the body, his body shaking and convulsing as if he had been exorcised of all that was dark within him.

It was 1993. The sanctuary was long gone. The fence with its twisted metal and sign was gone. There was nothing built in its place and was instead given to the county to deem it a part of the Auburn Recreation Area.

Kirk had long since graduated and had moved away from the mainland of the US and start a new life in Hawaii, enjoying how much more open and beautiful everything had been compared to California.

Kirk's mother had called him to tell him that they had found remains there at an abandoned deer camp close to the creek and that the police believed it to be Jason Newsted. With a gun found near the remains, and confirmation of identity from what little clothing was left, they closed the case on Jason's disappearance and ruled it a suicide.

He could only sit back in his chair, opening up a brand new pack of cigarettes and lighting one up then tossing it on the kitchen table as his mom muttered a soft prayer for his friend's departed soul, then began to tell him about her day back at home.