By Randy Mong
“Why don’t you just put a CD in?” Archie asked from the passenger seat, finally reaching his breaking point with the constant noise of skipping stations.
“Because,” Caleb replied with a quick glance to his fiancé, “all we have in here is Evanescence and that cast recording of Annie you insisted that we needed.”
“That’s not true!” Archie scoffed. “I have my mix in here somewhere,” he mumbled, reaching over to dig in the center console, grumbling about the mess of junk that Caleb had left inside.
The couple was on their way home from an annual dinner party for Archie’s work. Caleb had been to five of them now, and each year it got worse. Archie’s colleagues got snobbier with age. Or maybe the stick in their asses grew another inch. Either way, Caleb would have rather spent the night having his teeth pulled, but he couldn’t let Archie face it alone. Besides, if he hadn’t gone, people might have talked.
Things were easier when Archie’s most tolerable coworker, Matthew, showed up to wreak havoc on the open bar and his fellow office workers, but he hadn’t been there at this year’s party. Matthew usually thrived off the dirty looks he got from snooty businesspeople. His absence left Caleb to fend for himself when Archie was dragged into a conversation. Caleb practically crawled into his shitty brown polyester suit to either hide or just die.
Caleb tapped his fingers against the wheel as they stopped at a red light, taking a moment to absorb the man sitting beside him. Archie had always joked that they were opposites. Sun and moon, as cliché as it was. He was right, of course. Archie was always right. Caleb’s dark mess of waves next to the other’s perfectly styled, toffee-colored hair, and Archie’s celery green eyes that twinkled just the right way staring into his fiancé’s warm browns. Archie was big where Caleb was small, charismatic where Caleb was not, warm against his cold.
They needed each other, they had both concluded, to fill in the gaps in their lives. It was working well so far, if the ring on Caleb’s finger was any indication.
“Aha! Found it!” Archie held up the CD in its case, eyebrow arched.
Caleb rolled his eyes as a soft laugh spilled from his mouth. “Pop it in then, hotshot,” he said, shaking his head as the traffic light turned green and he pressed on the gas. There was a faint whir of the disc reading before the music began to leave the speakers, piano chords that slowly led into lyrics. Pearl Jam.
If I ever were to lose you
I’d surely lose myself…
Caleb listened to the soft hum that buzzed through the mouth of his fiancé, glancing over at him occasionally as he drove. He looked almost statuesque then, streetlights hitting his Roman nose and long eyelashes. He felt like he’d been looking for an eternity, but Archie’s voice made him falter.
“Wait, stop.”
“What’s up?” Caleb asked as he slowed the vehicle down to a slight roll, checking that there was no one behind him, but it was late, and everyone was already home or reaching the bottom of their bottles.
“Just pull over. There’s someone on the curb.”
Caleb complied with the instruction without a thought because it was Archie. The ring that he’d accepted was a binding of undoubtable trust after all. As he pulled over, into a parking lot on the side of the street, he scanned along the sidewalk before sure enough, his eyes landed on an unconscious heap of blonde hair and disheveled blue tulle.
He heard the click of a seatbelt beside him and looked up, seeing Archie reach for the passenger door handle. Automatically, Caleb’s hand sprung forward to curl around Archie’s arm that was close to him, squeezing softly.
“Arch,” he murmured, voice tense and nervous, jaw clenching together for a moment. “You don’t need to go out there,” he said. “We just— We can call the cops or something.”
Archie gave him a look over, cool celery eyes warming with a gentleness reserved for his lover. He reached the hand that was curled around the doorknob to settle on the fingers gripping his forearm. He rubbed the small, pale knuckles with his warm ones. Caleb’s hand was cold. They always were. The thought of if he’d forgotten to take his iron supplements today managed to push through the heart thumping anxiety. But then, a kiss was pressed to his head, erasing any musings he had.
“You worry too much,” Archie spoke against the dark curls, a smile evident in his voice before he pulled away to look at Caleb; he held Caleb’s face in his hands, thumbs stroking over sharp cheekbones. Archie was right. He did. Without his fiancé, Caleb would probably be late for work with how long he pondered over sock choices.
“I just want to make sure she’s okay, alright?”
Caleb was silent, before giving a subtle jerk of his head. “Alright.”
The door opened, making the car glow with yellow light from the interior bulbs before the soft thunk of the door shutting followed. Archie glanced behind him to give a reassuring smile through the windshield before continuing his walk to the unconscious woman on the curb. Caleb fidgeted in his seat, popping his knuckles habitually. Archie hated it, and it always turned into a long argument over bullshit like arthritis, but with how Caleb’s heart was thundering, he didn’t think he could live to see himself get arthritis.
Pearl Jam was still playing through the car, though it seemed painfully loud now without Archie’s hums and interjections, only leaving Caleb’s breaths to clash and grind against the strums of guitar and vocalizations. Call it attachment anxiety, but Caleb couldn’t give any shits; all he could think about how Archie should have been in the car but wasn’t, should have been holding his hand but wasn’t, should have been by his side as they drove their way home, but wasn’t. But then he heard a voice jackhammer through his anxiety, emerging in a soothing, careful echo.
Breathe.
Caleb’s hands stilled, knuckles sore from popping them, and suddenly the rigid stone stuck in his chest softened, becoming pliant and almost warm as a rush of oxygen reached his brain. He let his head hang for a moment, gaze focused on his lap as he let out a self-deprecating chuckle.
“Stupid, ” he mumbled to himself.
He was right. He was being stupid. Of course, Archie would want to help this woman; it was the right thing to do. Normally, he would think so too, but he had been in his own head nearly the whole night that finally being out of it felt like floating in dead space. Caleb felt almost ashamed of himself for thinking about leaving her there by herself.
A muffled yell from outside had him jarred from his position, his head snapping up to look at the source as the warmth of growing relaxation in the car froze once again. It was a frantic flicking of eyes until his vision settled on Archie, not too far away at all, trying to help the now-panicked girl sit up on the curb. She was out of it, eyeliner and mascara smudged over her face, almost making her look like some sort of masked vigilante.
Archie was clearly trying to be gentle, but he didn’t want her to fall back down and hit her head, so he had a careful grip on one arm. She was disoriented, panicked, and thrashing about with sounds of fright, drowning out Archie’s reassurances. She suddenly gathered her free arm close to her and pushed against Archie hard enough that it made him stumble backwards and onto the road. Caleb unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door then, ready to get out himself. To do what, he wasn’t sure, but he felt useless and stupid just sitting there in the car.
He swung his legs out from the space in his car, getting ready to push himself up, before his brain barely absorbed the whoosh of air beside him, stirring his curls from his forehead. It made him jolt with a soft gasp that quickly turned into a yelp as there was a sudden squeal of tires that made his ears buzz.
His brain didn’t register the metallic smash and glass crunching as anything other than noises, didn’t register the thunk-a-thunk-a-thunk-a as the rolling that it was, didn’t register the strangled grunts as anything at all, because what could possibly make such a sound?
Everything went silent with a final and heavy thud on the pavement.
Caleb didn’t want to move, as much as the adrenaline in his bloodstream begged him to. His body was stuck jerking with full-body tremors before his eyes finally caught sight of the figure on the pavement. He’d never seen a sight quite like it, his pattern-seeking brain trying to fill in dots that didn’t quite make logical sense. Maybe Archie would tell him, explain.
He did, in a certain, morbid way, Caleb realized.
But not in words.
Caleb didn’t need words when the stark white bone of an arm that jutted out from twisted and mottled tan skin, gleaming against streetlamps, told him everything he needed to know.
His brain commanded him to stand, and he did for a moment before crumpling to his knees. Someone was screaming, or were his ears ringing?
He looked frantically to his right, instinct pushing through to examine hazy stimuli. He blinked once, twice, watching smoke from an engine hit the light of the lamps igniting the road in a yellow glow. Small, greenish blue shards— Caleb thought they were rocks for a moment— littered the road, occasionally stained a bright, vicious red. Glass, his brain attempted to supply, but he didn’t want to put together the pieces of this ever-growing puzzle of horror. Other things littered the ground besides the pebble-like glass, things that Caleb couldn’t quite understand.
A man, an older one, one much older than Archie, stood by the smoking vehicle, fingers carding through graying hair. His car was black, like his shirt, like the night they were surrounded by. Even from a distance, Caleb could see his eyes, wide like saucers, and his mouth agape. He’d never seen anyone wear an expression so visceral, not ever. Another puzzle piece to add to the undeniable truth.
The heels of his hands dug painfully into the asphalt as he began to crawl, the sensation surprisingly present in his mind, welcome, even. His sweet, beautiful Archie that was spread, twisted, and spilling over that very same asphalt. Red wet chunks, both with red and an indescribable slime, littered the road, glinting off the light from above in a grayish-pink hue. It looked soft, and as Caleb moved, he felt bits of it under his palms. As he shifted, it squelched and gave under the pressure, spongy and oddly cold.
A fragmented piece of something hard dug into his hand, and he winced as a hissed burst through his teeth, the pain breaking through his fuzzy mind for just a moment as he reached his hand up to look at it. The piece was pink, though it seemed like it would be white if it had been wiped clean, like an oddly thick shard of something like a dinosaur skull that he’d seen at the Smithsonian. Another puzzle piece, digging into the heel of his hand.
A splash of blue tulle and blonde curls caught his eyes next, and he looked closer at how the feminine features and smeared makeup crumpled. She approached the man in the black shirt, shoved him, and he stumbled back against the side of his car drunkenly. It almost made Caleb laugh. She was screaming something, the same frantic tone permeating through the ringing in Caleb’s ears. His brows furrowed as he tried to focus on the words.
You killed him. You killed him. You killed him.
There it was. The finished puzzle.Caleb’s head tilted, and he looked back at his Archie, who now seemed as delicate as glass. Surely, they meant someone else. Archie was fine. Archie was fine. Caleb felt a pinch of grief, for whoever they meant. But there was a selfish thought, one he wasn’t sure got out of his mouth or not.
“Call an ambulance, please! He needs an ambulance!”
He was finally close enough to curl a hand around a blue cotton covered shoulder (Red. It was red now. He could’ve sworn it was blue.) to squeeze the warm skin underneath, to jostle the distorted body beneath him. It was still warm. That was good. That meant something. That had to mean something.
“Arch? Archie… archiearchiearchiearchiearchieARCHIE!”
His knees were wet. Why were they wet? It wasn’t raining. Archie had told him the forecast this morning. He always did. He would tell him again tomorrow. Maybe in the hospital, maybe a little rough around the edges, but he would still tell him to look out for blue skies in that stupid weather reporter’s voice.
He nearly went to gently turn Archie over, to see his face, but he realized in confusion that he could already see it. Or what was left of it, marred with shards of windshield, and black chunks of asphalt from the road, ripped and busted open. Archie’s nose, his perfect blank canvas for kisses, was now lost in a sea of red and nauseating white, distorted and shattered beyond recognition like a curvy backroad. To the right, to the left, and another sharp angle to the right, before somehow disappearing inwards, intermingling with the mess of his upper lip, a distortion of skin and teeth. It was all splattered with blood in hot, thick rivulets, sluggishly gushing out of every open orifice.
His eyes remained untouched though, that bright, sparkling green shining through. Caleb reached trembling hands— palms marred with blood and small chunks of cerebrum— out to curl around his fiancé’s neck, fingers sprawling to press against his jaw and the back of his skull. The skin was still warm. But of course, it would be. Archie was always warm.
Caleb’s fingers skimmed over something that felt unfamiliar to him. He knew every inch of Archie, so it caught his attention immediately. He swallowed the whimper that threatened to leave his throat, only repeating a frantic, desperate, “Arch?” as he quickly looked to examine the skin of Archie’s neck. Alarm bells went off in his head in an instant— wrong wrong wrong wrong— when he observed the stretched and twisted skin. It was an image Caleb had only seen in horror movies, small glimpses of shrapnel-like bone peeking through slight exit wounds.
More pieces to put together again. But Caleb could do it. He’d do it right here, right now, because it was Archie and he needed him to do this one thing.
“I got you,” he murmured, hands moving from Archie’s neck to find a starting place in order to fix him. “We’ll fix this, see? I got you.”
But something still didn’t make sense to him as he slowly began to look at the big picture of his lover sprawled on the road. Why could he see his face if Archie was sprawled on his side, his back to him? That didn’t make sense.
But it did. It did make sense.
His head was the wrong way.
His head was the wrong way.
✦•······················•✦•······················•✦
If there was one thing Caleb hated more than a funeral, it was this godforsaken suit he’d forced himself into. He only had one; it was also his first. A two-piece set that he had been gifted by his sister on his first birthday. She always did that sort of thing for him, whether it was his first chest binder, or his first real haircut. She had been affirming where their mother had not.
It was a kind gesture that was drowned out by the fact of how ugly the stupid suit was, a dark brown, shiny polyester. It remained untouched except for the occasional brush of fingers along the jacket’s sleeve as Caleb would skim groggily through his wardrobe in the mornings.
With his own wedding just around the corner, he had figured he could finally retire the damn thing for good and get a nice, wool suit. He and Archie had been bouncing between gray and black for weeks, but it was alright, they had said, because they had plenty of time. But of course, that horrible suit had to have the last laugh, snatching up the time they had and stuffing minutes and hours into shoddily sewn pockets.
Grief suddenly and relentlessly stabbed in his chest, threatening to choke him even more than his tie already was as he settled into his car in the parking lot of the funeral home. With slow movements he pushed his jingling keys into the ignition and turned them, listening to the engine of his shitty P.T. Cruiser sputter to life. He lowered his face into his hands, forehead lightly grazing the steering wheel, a ragged breath rattling through his rib cage as he tried to absorb the week’s events. It was odd to be in the quiet as the last few cars departed the parking lot. He had forced himself to keep busy all week. Funeral planning, document filing, bills piling, hugs and condolences, and casseroles galore. All to keep him away from the startling truth.
He was alone. What was he going to do?
He groaned out a gritted noise of panic as his fingers curled around his tie to loosen it, ravenous in his movements. The drone of absolutely nothing was making his eyes sting with hot
emotion as he jutted his arm out to graze over the volume knob of the radio, turning it up so the boom of the speakers could patch up the shroud over his grief.
Cape Cay County Sheriff’s office is asking for help in locating 26-year-old Emily Wagner. She was last seen in August…
Caleb dropped his head back until it impacted dully against the soft headrest of the driver’s seat, bringing up his free hand to pinch his nose bridge, stomach churning. This was the farthest thing from what he needed right now.
“Oh, fuck me…” he muttered under a frustrated huff, jaw clenching before he pressed the button on his console to skim to the next station, and then the next station, and then the next…
Caleb finally stopped at a station that seemed to suffice, some shitty Goldies station that played Journey and Queen about a billion times before finally giving a reprieve with a hardly more tolerable ABBA song. He took a moment, holding the steering wheel in a knuckle-white grip as he sucked in a breath, repeating the command to himself quietly before his heart managed to stop roaring in his ears. He swallowed thickly before reaching to put the car in reverse to pull out of the spot at the funeral home that he had frequented for the last week.
Nausea pooled in his gut, acidic and relentless. He had gotten to see Archie again, though he wasn’t the Archie he knew. It was like looking at a wax sculpture from that overpriced and creepy museum that the pair had gone to in Niagara Falls, where Archie made Caleb lean in close enough to one of the sculptures before squeezing him at his sides, making him shriek before they both devolved into giggles.
That wasn’t Archie. Archie’s cheeks flushed a brilliant pink when he smiled, not the dull, powdery rose that sat atop his pale cheeks while he laid stationary in the casket. Archie was warm when he pressed his body against Caleb’s back while they curled up on a quiet, cool night in autumn. His heartbeat fiercely against the space between Caleb’s shoulder blades. That wasn’t Archie.
That was a body.
Archie had never made a will or detailed what he had wanted for a service (why would he?), so his mother and Caleb had taken it upon themselves to plan, which meant Archie’s mother, Kathleen, provided “suggestions” while Caleb was expected to nod along like a mindless zombie.
Caleb was proud to admit that he hadn’t gone belly-up over the discussion of an open casket. He knew it was something that Archie would have absolutely despised for himself, but of course, Kathleen was insistent upon it. She went on and on about “preserving her son’s legacy” and “giving the opportunity to say goodbye.”
It was easy to say that when she hadn’t seen how unrecognizable her son looked twisted and distorted and destroyed—
“Fuck!” Caleb suddenly stomped his foot sharply against the brakes of his car, his poor car practically screaming through the strain of the sudden stop. He gritted his teeth, bracing himself for inevitable impact with the frantic deer that had shot from the curtain of trees that surrounded the road on either side.
He jerked with the stop, muscles tensing to avoid smashing his face against the wheel, blood screaming in his veins with the vicious ice of adrenaline. And yet, there the deer went on its way, finishing its path across the road, disappearing in the woods again. It didn’t reflect on its near gruesome death, all flailing hooves and its blood and fur trapped in the grill of Caleb’s car. It made Caleb think. Did Archie have time to think? Reflect? Was he scared?
Caleb was still stuck in a dead stop, his leg almost aching from the amount of pressure his foot was putting on the wheel, but he couldn’t move. His teeth clacked together as he shuddered. A honk tugged Caleb from his thoughts with a jolt, and he looked around frantically before the sound happened again, from behind him. He whirled around over his shoulder to look through his rear windshield, heart still racing and palms sweating, and somehow the embarrassment of seeing a car behind him with an irritated driver behind the wheel calmed the nausea in his stomach. If he’d thought about… the incident any longer, he was sure he’d be sick.
The task of carefully pressing the gas and starting to drive was helpful in yanking him out of the horrible drain he’d been going down. If he looked at the trees, at the speedometer, at anything, he could at least repress the images branded behind his eyelids. And so, he cranked up the music as loud as he could, listening to the shitty speakers in his car vibrate with bass that they couldn’t handle and just let himself go on autopilot, mind becoming a welcome blank expanse. He could handle this. He could handle the oddly comforting sense of nothing. A welcome change compared to the Tilt-A-Whirl from hell that his brain tended to put him through.
Caleb didn’t change the station once the entire way home, barely absorbing the inevitable cheerfulness of “Come on Eileen” that every Goldies station inevitably forces onto their poor, unsuspecting listeners at least once a day. He simply let the familiar tune’s beats vibrate against his hands on the wheel as he pulled into the parking lot beside his apartment complex. Robotic movements turned the key out of the ignition and swamped the car in silence. Caleb sat for a moment, eyes shutting as he sucked in a breath. His car felt like a fucking armored tank right now, and the sunny, warm day somehow was a war zone. He swallowed the lump in his throat, teeth digging into the inside of his cheek.
Breathe.
And he did.
It would be okay. Maybe only for a few minutes, but he’d take them.
Caleb climbed out of his car slowly, hand clenching into a fist around his keys before shuffling to the door of his apartment. Thank God it was on the first floor. He could hardly stand the stairs as it was. He hesitated as he shoved his key in the lock and pushed down on the door handle. This was it. It really was hisapartment now. Just his apartment. He hadn’t been just his in a very, very long time. But he could pretend it wasn’t. Just for a little while longer.
Caleb opened the door then allowed himself to walk inside with a deep heave of air into his lungs. He shut it. Air released. He leaned against the door, letting his head fall back against it. He stood there, allowing his brain to fill in the silence with familiar sensations. Food on the stove, CD in the boombox, a kiss to his temple. Laughter.
“I’m home!”
Caleb was met with the smell of spices and vegetables as he nudged open the door with his shoulder, mouth immediately beginning to water. He was starving and Archie’s cooking was unmatched. It was Friday evening, the one day in their horrible schedules that worked out just right, and they always took advantage of the precious time, Archie cooking dinner, Caleb picking the movie, and an unspoken competition to see if they could finish it.
He didn’t savor the delicious smell in the grumble in his belly for long, however, as the blast of music practically knocked him off his feet.
“We’re going to get a noise complaint again,” Caleb scoffed as he shut the door with his foot, bags of groceries juggled in his arms.
He could practically feel the vibrations of the music through the doorknob when he had turned it, and the source was now in front of his eyes. A small but deceptively powerful red boombox threatened to blow the ceiling off of their apartment with the sheer volume that Archie had cranked The Smiths up to. Caleb didn’t even think it was possible to jam so aggressively to The Smiths, but Archie was proving him wrong now, bobbing his head and swaying his hips in a way that almost seemed obscene.
It created quite a picture for Caleb, one he certainly didn’t need while he was holding bags of frozen TV dinners and bread.
Archie turned from the stove, and the vegetables he had begun sautéing on the stove, soft lips pulled into a sly grin that only Caleb saw. Or at least he hoped he was the only one who had seen it, because he knew what it meant. Archie reached a hand almost painfully slow to turn down the music until it was a faint drone, and now it felt too quiet, like Caleb was stuck under Archie’s tantalizing gaze like mouse caught in a trap.
“They should be grateful that they don’t have to make the usual one,” Archie said, voice deceptively soft as he approached his fiancé, strong arms curling around Caleb’s waist.
Caleb’s face turned warm, blood rushing to his cheeks as he hummed out a chuckle, bags of groceries hitting the floor, meeting their inevitable doom to thaw as Caleb’s now-empty hands reached up to graze up Archie’s arms.
“You’re gross,” Caleb teased softly as he felt a kiss to his temple, a long nose in his curls. “At this point, we’re going to have to face two noise complaints.”
“Hm…” Archie hummed in response. Another kiss to Caleb’s lips. It would’ve nearly felt chaste, if the butterflies in his rib cage weren’t flapping their wings against his sternum. “I’m thinking that’s the goal, hot shot.”
Kisses to Caleb’s jaw and a grin against soft skin. A faint gasp lurched from his mouth as Archie laughed softly in his ear.
“Dinner is going to burn…” Caleb murmured, craning his neck as Archie’s teeth scraped gently along his pulse. A laugh from Archie then, one that Caleb joined in on, both of their cheeks pink and eyes bright. Archie emerged from his spot nestled against Caleb’s warm skin, dazzling green eyes glinting dangerously.
“I really don’t think you should be worried about dinner right now…”
It would have to be enough for now.
“I’m home,” he called out. He was met with silence that he neglected to acknowledge, feet moving him towards there—his bedroom. Caleb flicked on the light before staring at the clutter on the bed with a tired chuckle. God, he could picture Archie now, the way he would have picked up the clothes on the bed in one quick swoop and tossed them all back in the box they came from. “That is future Archie’s problem,” he would’ve said.
But it wasn’t future Archie’s problem. There was no future Archie. Only a future Caleb, and practically a million pieces of clothing that he was now forced to sort through at the insistence of Archie’s mother. She wasn’t much of a hoarder. Something about “someone needing it more than them”, or whatever the fuck kind of bullshit excuse she wanted to use to throw away memories. Someone didn’t need the shirt that Archie wore when they opened presents on Christmas morning, or his favorite pair of jeans. Caleb did. He needed that more than anything. He was limiting himself to what he could reasonably store, and he tried not to think of the rest.
He’d have to finish. It was a task he put off by finally shrugging off the ugly brown polyester suit jacket he was wearing, deciding to put on something more bearable, something that didn’t have the lingering aura of death attached to it. He wrenched the strangling tie off with a sharp flash of disdain, his shirt following. Caleb quickly yanked off the pants and set them aside, face scrunching. They weren’t dirty and they didn’t match the jacket anymore. He had to replace the original pair after they’d gotten soaked with— Maybe he’d finally burn the thing once and for all. He never wanted to wear it again.
He walked past the mirror in the corner of the room, avoiding glancing at his half naked form for any reason, sighing as he pulled open the closet door. He didn’t think, only grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Caleb would’ve worn a garbage bag if it meant getting out of that suit. Finally dressed, he hesitantly approached the bed, staring at the small pile of clothes and the box on the mattress. He’d found the box nestled in the corner of their closet. Things that Archie didn’t deem worthy to hang in the closet but was too lazy to sort either. Caleb had forgotten about it entirely until he’d been forced to go through everything.
He reached towards a shirt at the top of the pile with careful fingers, like it was an ancient artifact that threatened to crumble at his touch. Caleb held it up, looking at it with a fond smile as his eyes began to sting. It was a green flannel; one that wouldn’t fit Archie now. This was bought before he started going to the gym. He could think of a time he himself had worn it after a night of clumsy, drunken touches and giddy giggles to save himself from the chill of the morning after. However, there was a memory much more prevalent, precious in his mind. He remembered vividly the first time he saw this almost as vividly as he smelled the ocean and felt hot sand against the soles of his feet…
Caleb was reminded very quickly why he hated the beach every time he went. People claimed he was lucky all the time to live in a shoreside town, but he would happily disagree. It was filled with obnoxious old tourists who wanted to spend their winters in a place that didn’t make their joints creak, and the beach was to blame. Not to mention the sand sticking to every possible surface, the inevitable wince-worthy sunburn, and all of the eyes that felt like they were glued to him, like they had x-ray vision.
But here he was now, unable to say no to a birthday beach day invitation for a friend of his from college. He may have hated the beach, but he wasn’t a total dickwad. They were playing Frisbee, though none of them were really that good at it, when a gust of wind captured the disc and sent it in the impossibly wrong direction.
“I got it!” Caleb exclaimed before anyone else could, trudging through the sand to chase after it. It landed right by a man who was sitting in the sand, arms propped on his knees as he stared out at the horizon. The sound jolted the man out his trance, and he looked up.
His green flannel snapped and rippled in the wind, unbuttoned and revealing a golden, lean chest beneath. Caleb wondered briefly—for hardly a millisecond— what it would be like to pull that very shirt from his shoulders, what the stranger’s warm skin would feel like against his fingertips, when he scoffed and shook his head. Stop it, you freak.
Caleb wanted to groan, absolutely mortified by the idea of having to approach anyone like this, but especially someone who looked like they were having their own personal “Avril Lavigne music video” moment, but he had no choice, finally reaching the man with a sheepish smile.
“Sorry,” he said. “My friend is practically armed and dangerous when she’s got a Frisbee.” Caleb wanted to wince at his poor attempt at a joke, but the handsome man smiled, just a little.
“That’s alright. Don’t worry about it, you’re just lucky it came after me and not one of the old ladies,” the man reassured teasingly. His eyes were so green. They glinted in the setting sun, practically matching the flannel he was wearing. It suited him, conforming to his lean physique in just the right places. As handsome as the man was, however, there was something Caleb noticed above all of it.
This man looked sad.
“Hey, are you okay?” Caleb asked, surprised at his concern for a total stranger, but he couldn’t help it. The question made a breathy laugh leave the man in the sand, clearly a bitter one as he huffed out a deep sigh.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine… Just— Life, I guess,” he murmured softly, and Caleb made an understanding hum as he nodded. He grabbed the Frisbee from the ground before throwing it in the direction of his friends, raising a thumbs up into the sky. He looked back at the man, who was now gazing at him curiously, before slowly lowering himself to sit down, legs crossed in the sand. “I get it,” Caleb murmured, just loud enough to be heard over the waves. “Penny for your thoughts?”
The man looked at Caleb up and down for a moment, and it made Caleb worried that he’d thoroughly freaked out this absolutely gorgeous guy, but then those celery green eyes softened slightly.
“My wife,” he began quietly. “Ex. Ex-wife. She took off a couple of nights ago, left a note and everything. Said she’d found someone else.”
Oh. Oh no. Caleb had figured that the guy was having a bad day, but he did not think he was qualified to somehow comfort someone through this. He opened his mouth to speak, but the man looked up at him, slightly amused.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he assured. “I know that it’s… a lot. I just think it helped to get it out into the universe, or whatever…”
Caleb nodded softly, smiling at him in return. It was quiet for a moment, besides the seagulls, waves, and the breeze. It was comfortable. He didn’t feel the need to say anything, but he did anyway.
“What’s her name?”
“What? Oh… It was Sierra.”
Silence again for a moment and Caleb glanced down at the sand. A small glint flickered in his eyes and a smirk pulled at his lips.
“Well… Fuck Sierra, then.”
The man’s head whipped over to look at Caleb, whose smirk was now pointed at him, and they stared at each other for a moment in an exchange of mischief and surprise before they both devolved into little giggles.
“Alright, fuck Sierra,” the man said in agreement as the laughter finally started to fade. “What’s your name, hot shot?”
“Caleb.”
“I’m Archie.”
Caleb let out a tearful laugh for a moment, shaking his head. They were both so stupid. They fell in love in practically weeks, everything moving too fast, but somehow not fast enough. How it took them five years to get engaged, God only knew, but he wished they had had the nerve to go through with it faster. Maybe then, Caleb could have had a husband, even just for a little while. The sob jerked out of him suddenly, completely uncontrollable. His fingers tightened their grip on Archie’s flannel, like if he gripped it tight enough, he’d somehow materialize under his touch. He continued to cry. They were sharp, almost tantrum-like wails as he buried his face into the fabric, breathing in deeply. Somehow, even though it had been sitting in a box for God knows how long, it still smelled like Archie and the ocean. Anger, then. So much anger. He shouldn’t have to do this. Shouldn’t have to sort through all of this, shouldn’t have to savor his own fiancé’s scent because he would never get it again. He should’ve been happy. This wasn’t fair.
“God, fuck!” Caleb bellowed suddenly, raw and rough on his vocal cords, as he threw the flannel to the side. His fingers reached up to thread through his curls and squeezed. He savored the burn in his scalp for a brief moment, but it wasn’t enough. He needed something else. He looked at the box on the bed with a fiery gaze, and he reached for it with a scream as he pushed it off the edge of the mattress with an angry sob.
A metal clatter broke through the air, suddenly making Caleb stop, blinking tears out of confused eyes as he tried to steady his ragged breaths.
What was that?
Caleb quickly wiped his face with the back of his hand as he hesitantly rounded around the bed to find the source of the noise. He sniffled as he knelt to look at the small, steel cash box on the ground, broken open from hitting the ground. He swore softly, reaching to gather the scattered contents. It was mostly loose change, a few dollar bills, and pictures. But two things stuck out. A key to what looked like a storage unit, and a USB simply labeled Videos in Archie’s spidery script. His brows furrowed as he plucked up the key, rousing a nudge in the back of his skull. What was so familiar about this key?
It was April. Spring cleaning was upon them, as it was the same weekend every year, though the expectation of it made Caleb dread it worse. But it needed to be done, and their desk in their office was an absolute disaster, a mess of abandoned poetry and songs scattered with insurance bills and Archie’s construction documents for his job. Though, the true horrors were in the drawers. Mountains and mountains of takeout menus, random paper clips, and Caleb’s abandoned family of plastic dinosaurs. He opened the top drawer with a wince, sighing deeply as he began to dig through it. He frowned as his fingers nudged over cool metal, and in the hopes of finding a spare quarter, he curled careful fingers around it and pulled it out. He faltered at the sight of a key. It was average. Not too big, not too small. Just… a key. For what, though? It certainly wasn’t his.
“Arch?” He called, waiting for the telltale signs of bare feet sticking to hardwood as his lover opened the door to their office, headphones around his neck, still faintly playing music through the speakers. Caleb turned, holding out the key between them in his palm. “Do you know what this is for? I found it in the desk but I-”
Suddenly, the key was snatched from his palm with such vigor that it made Caleb gasp, and something flickered over Archie’s face, glinting in eyes before the key was shoved into his pocket.
“Don’t worry about it, love,” Archie began, smiling down at Caleb. “Just for a storage unit with some stuff from my old apartment. I’m keeping it until we get married and expand, or whatever.”
Caleb looked at Archie in confusion, blinking softly as he opened his mouth to answer, but he felt a hand at the button of his jeans, and he jolted.
“Arch— I— Why didn’t you mention it earlier? I feel bad.” Caleb murmured as he tried subtly to intertwine his fingers with the ones at his waistband, only for them to be smacked away. His brows furrowed. “Archie?”
“Hush, alright? It’s fine. Just let yourself feel it.” Archie insisted, face burrowing into Caleb’s neck then, into that spot that made his knees weak, and he did.
Caleb’s stomach gave a twist as he quickly averted his eyes from the key, not wanting to think about it anymore. They never finished spring cleaning that day, hence the piling box of Archie’s things that he was left to sort in the closet.
He turned the USB in his hand. Archie never seemed like the type to keep videos. What kind were they? Why would he lock away something sentimental? Was it porn? Caleb looked over his shoulder, like he was afraid of being caught, like Archie himself would burst through the door and scold him for snooping through his things. But of course, that would be too good to be true.
He slowly rose to his feet, hesitating before curling the USB into his fist and leaving the bedroom, where his laptop was set on the kitchen island. He felt bad snooping, but Archie had nothing to hide now. He was dead, so secrets became forfeit. Besides, if it were porn, he could allow himself a fond chuckle and maybe he would sleep easier tonight. Caleb slowly sat down at one of the chairs surrounding the island, reaching to boot up his laptop. He turned the USB over in his fingers, hesitating for a split second before mumbling a “fuck it” to himself and plugging it into one of the USB ports. It took a moment for the computer to read it before he could finally open it, confronted with a singular file appearing in his tab.
Home Videos
Suddenly, some odd tension that had been forming in his chest released, and he gave a shake of his head. He couldn’t believe he thought it was porn, when Archie really was just hiding the fact that he was big sap after all. Maybe it would make him feel better to see what memories Archie thought good enough to keep. Now he had something of Archie’s that would never fade.
He clicked on the file, and suddenly, he was confronted with folders. Lots of folders. He didn’t even know where to start, very quickly overwhelmed, but he was more confused about the names of the files than anything else.
Percy. Xander. Monica.
A weight dropped in Caleb’s stomach, an irrational thought immediately popping into his head. Was he cheating? Was this all a guise to hide Archie’s secret lovers? No. No, Archie wouldn’t. Maybe these were friends. Archie had always been organized. He had organized sentimental photos. That had to be it. He kept scrolling, name after name after name. It had to be at least thirty. What was this?
Emily.
The name stirred something in his memory, something vague, but he couldn’t place it. He never remembered Archie ever mentioning any of these people, but this reminded him of something. He hesitated before moving his cursor over it, watching the blue outline highlight it for a moment before he clicked on it. The folder opened, and he was met with mostly photo files. Caleb’s brows furrowed as he clicked on the first one. He was met with a picture of a woman and her dog. It seemed simple. She was pretty. Long, straight brown hair, brown eyes. A nice smile and freckled cheeks. But she wasn’t familiar. Jealousy and dread pooled in his gut. He continued to look through the photos, most of them just of her, who Caleb assumed was Emily, and an occasional family photo, but none of them included Archie. He reached the end of the photos, trying to ignore the cold stone forming in his stomach as he looked at the last file.
Emily.mov
Maybe this video file would have some answers. It was different, the only one. For some reason, this felt necessary. He clicked on it.
At first, he thought the video was corrupted. He could hear a faint rustling of audio, but the screen was dark. He was about to skip ahead to see if anything changed before the screen was overwhelmed with light, turning it white for a moment before the camera focused. Metal walls, no windows, but the center of the screen contained what made Caleb’s heart sink.
A young woman. She was tied to a chair. Brown hair, frightened brown eyes, freckles.
Emily.
He watched in confusion, his hand that wasn’t wrapped around the mouse curling into a trembling fist. This was a prank or something. A college project. Porn, for fuck’s sake. Anything but what Caleb’s mind kept pulling him to. Because why would Archie have something like this? Why would he watch this?
He was broken out of his thoughts as a whimper echoed through his speakers, one that made his heart ache. This was real. Oh God, it was real. Bile rose in his throat, but he swallowed it, moving the mouse to close out of the video. He couldn’t watch this anymore. He didn’t know what else he was supposed to do. But then he heard something. Something familiar. Piano. Guitar. Pearl Jam.
If I ever were to lose you
I’d surely lose myself…
It was Caleb’s turn to whimper then, reality smacking him in the face with such ferocity that he thought he’d spit up blood and teeth. His head hurt enough that it felt like it could happen. Was he breathing? Where was he? What the actual fuck was going on?!
“I’ve got my mix in here somewhere…”
No. No, Archie wouldn’t watch this shit, let alone film it. It is all a sick coincidence; a dream, a nightmare, anything at all except the barrel of truth Caleb was looking down. A puzzle piece found, like that night, memories sliding into place. An understanding that he didn’t want to confront. The radio in his car, after the funeral in the parking lot, the news reporter’s faux sympathy barely leaking in over the boredom.
Cape Cay County Sheriff’s office is asking for help in locating 26-year-old Emily Wagner. She was last seen in August…
It seemed cruel now that he had skipped past it, like it was a sob story he didn’t have the energy to handle, but now here she was. Emily. Living, breathing, real, terrified Emily.
A figure with broad shoulders, warm, large hands, and toffee-colored hair came into view on his laptop’s screen, a knife spinning and glinting in his grip.
Don’t turn around. Please don’t turn around. It’s not you if you don’t turn around.
The man swiveled on his feet. Long nose. Green eyes.
Caleb shot to his feet, running to the sink, barely making it before he gagged sharply, vomit leaping up his throat and out of his mouth. Cool sweat gathered on his forehead, making his curls stick to his forehead. The same curls that Archie would kiss, would twirl around his finger, would tug on when—
Caleb groaned with dread as he vomited once more, panic overtaking his system. He would’ve screamed if he could’ve breathed, but it seemed he didn’t have to as an agonized and shrill cry left his laptop speakers. It was something raw and guttural, something even the most talented of actors couldn’t repeat. Like a creature was trying to escape through poor Emily’s throat. Caleb’s ears were ringing, but he could still hear it. Screams turned into gurgles, and Caleb had had enough. He pushed himself away from the sink and stumbled to his laptop, shakily reaching for his mouse to close the video, trying to avoid looking at the screen as much as possible.
So much red. A smile on Archie’s face that he hadn’t even seen when he’d been proposed to. A raw, inhuman form of glee that only the most sadistic of people could unlock. Archie’s arm swung in an arc, a claw hammer in his fist, already stained with blood. The extracting end of the hammer descended, and Emily’s pleads— wet with the blood spurt from what was left of her teeth—for mercy escalated into incoherent shrieks as the hammer lodged into the meat of her thigh with an indescribable squelch.
Caleb frantically closed the tab as a pained sound of sympathy drew from him. The room was dead silent. He could hear the fridge humming, and the dulling of the ringing in his ears, though the screams seemed to echo, like he was in an infinite tunnel. Now faced with the tab of names again, he stared at them with a blank gaze. A familiar feeling washed over him, like the one he had felt on the way home. An absence, like someone had cut him out of the universe’s big paper snowflake, and now he was floating, fluttering, down… down… down…His eyes glazed over more names.
Caleb’s head felt empty, words formulating into thoughts that disappeared into nothing seconds later. His Archie was never his. How many times has he curled up to sleep at night, warm in his bed, while his fiancé was carving into someone? How many times had he missed the clues, the tricks, the deceit?
If he didn’t know who Archie was, then what could he possibly know?
He believed in Archie more than he believed the sky was blue or that apples grew on trees. He had memorized every glance, every smile, every pitch and tone of his lover’s voice. And it meant nothing. Because it wasn’t real.
His eyes flicked over a name.
Matthew.
Matthew hadn’t been to the annual work conference. Of course, he hadn’t. Because he was fucking rotting in a storage unit while Caleb and Archie sipped champagne. Had Archie done it that day, before they left? Or maybe the night before? Did Archie get a chance to bury him before he was destroyed by metal and rubber? Was that karma? If so, karma for who? Caleb didn’t think, only numbly dragged his mouse to click on Matthew’s file. Sure enough, there it was, a .mov file and a plethora of pictures. Just like Emily. Before Caleb could think, he clicked on the video. And he watched it.
Why shouldn’t he? Was this not reasonable punishment? To see the damage, he allowed to happen? Shouldn’t someone see these poor people’s last moments? Their memory would die with him, and he had quite a bit of time left on this Earth.
Then he watched another.
And another.
He lost track eventually. The sun had come down, then back up again. The acrid taste of vomit still lingered in his mouth, though he made no move from his chair. If he were lucky, maybe he’d rot there. Some of them he couldn’t finish. Eventually, he had reached the bottom of the folders. Two left.
Sierra.
Caleb stared at the name for a moment before a hysterical laugh had bubbled out of him, and he clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle it. An ex-wife who mysteriously disappeared into the night? Now, it seemed embarrassing that he had fallen for it. How much more Dateline could you get?
Archie had killed her. He had killed her in cold blood and moved on. He wondered if Sierra had found out about her husband’s violent tastes, if Archie would insist that she had forced his hand if he was still alive to defend himself. Or maybe she was just as clueless, and Archie had gotten bored. Caleb always saw Archie as a man who couldn’t finish a book or a movie, because he always got too bored.
Well, anyone who got off on murder had to be a little bored everywhere else, didn’t they?
Caleb didn’t want to watch Sierra’s video. Didn’t want to click on her folder. He wanted this to stop. He wanted to be done. But he would never be done, would he? This would never end. Even with all these people dead and buried, Archie included, they would have his grip on him until his final breath, all their burdens weighing on his shoulders, like the chains of Jacob Marley.
But there was still one file left. One file, and he could shut off his computer and pretend like he knew what he was going to do next. His eyes scanned over the screen, at the final file.
Caleb.