eat, sweetheart,” Jimmy informed, running his fingers through Nathanial’s hair. “Trust me, you’ll need your energy for…to get through this night. I have a lot planned.”
Nathanial kept shaking his head as Jimmy brought his hand up to Nathanial’s mouth and pulled out the cloth. Nathanial watched as Jimmy ran the fork through the slop that was supposedly food. He noticed hair and blood-soaked bread. He also realized that little whitish clump setting on a piece of lettuce was skin. He felt sickness building up inside of him as Jimmy brought the fork up to Nathanial’s mouth. He stared at the bloody hair hanging off the fork. The nausea in Nathanial’s stomach made its way up to this throat.
“Come on,” Jimmy urged. “I thought you liked Marisa?”
Hot vomit shot out of Nathanial’s mouth when he was about to scream. Jimmy let out a pleased moan and took the gag and wiped the vomit with it, ran his tongue across it before cramming it back into Nathanial’s mouth. Nathanial started twitching about and making angry sounds like a dog, trying to get out of Jimmy’s hold as best he could.
“No, no, you don’t, lil rabbit.” Jimmy whacked Nathanial against the head again with the wine bottle. There was no need for Nathanial to be tied now. He was unconscious, but he wasn’t dead. Jimmy checked for his heart beat, which still beat stubbornly. He was still warm. To Jimmy, he was still perfect.
“The rabbit sure looks tasty! What shall…the wolf do?” Jimmy wondered allowed. He spoke with great purpose, like an actor wanting to win his audience over.
“Does he toy with the rabbit, for the rabbit wants to escape? Oh what does he do? Well, what matters is what the Wolf wants to do. And the wolf is sick. Is it hunger that has made the wolf sick? No, food usually makes one sick, hunger makes one desperate. Why is the Wolf desperate? Because Rabbit made Wolf chase Rabbit when Rabbit was supposed to be Wolf’s friend.” The last few words fell from his mouth in everlasting darkness.
Jimmy was very still for a minute, almost as still as Nathanial. He ran his hand down the back of Nathanial’s neck.
“Rabbit’s still, what does that mean?” Jimmy wondered in a passionate whisper. Jimmy suddenly smacked Nathanial against the back of the head.
“WAKE UP Rabbit! WAKE UP! This isn’t a game anymore – the game was the chase and the Wolf won. You know what the Wolf does now?” Jimmy waited, but Nathanial was despondent.
“The Wolf…celebrates,” Jimmy stated passionately as he ran his hand down Nathanial’s back. He reached around and unbuttoned Nathanial’s jeans and tugged on them until they were down to Nathanial’s knees. He sighed when he groped Nathanial’s balls. The painful squeeze woke Nathanial up, forcing him back into the horror of his reality.
“You know what I hate, Nathanial? I hate vampire books. I hate vampires. I hate the idea of how if you have someone else…if you have a human’s blood in you, you get better. How can that be? Humans are evil. You’d get sick.”
When Nathanial considered fighting back or coming up with some plan, his head swirled and he felt another stream of vomit wanting to rise. He shook his head in violent protest, it was the only thing he could do.
“Shh,” Jimmy told him. Nathanial shut his eyes tight when he felt two fingers stab his asshole. He shook his head at the pain and tears started streaming down his cheeks.
“I know,” Jimmy said, as though he was trying to comfort him. “Hush now, hush…”
Jimmy slid his cock up Nathanial’s ass. His head throbbed and sickness in him seemed to spread violently throughout him. He tried not to throw up because he would probably choke to death. He felt Jimmy rip him open wider.
“Oh…” Jimmy made a sound that purely acknowledged the pleasure he was getting from this. This made the next series of thrusts excruciating for Nathanial and he just wanted to die.
“And the Wolf says it loves every tear rolling down the Rabbit’s face,” Jimmy said as he pushed even more violently into Nathanial with the will to split him in half. “The Wolf says its like wine with dinner…”
Nathanial started making painful grunting sounds. It almost sounded like he was choking on his own sickness.
“Yes, yes, Wolf wants to dissolve in Rabbit, Wolf wants to disappear in Rabbit, Wolf wants to flood like the Death Sea into Rabbit…”
Nathanial’s moans turned into choked up spurts and he felt Jimmy’s fist bash down against Nathanial’s spine. This was what Jimmy did when he came. Then Nathanial heard a hard thump because when Jimmy climaxed he fell off the bed. Nathanial was still at first, suffering. A cloud of demons inside him had burst and now the demons would dance there forever.
The drug, the exhaustion, kept Nathanial slipping in and out of consciousness. He tried to stay awake. He didn’t want that happening all over again. He looked down at Jimmy. He saw the pool of blood expanding across Jimmy’s stomach then he saw the fork had stabbed him there. Jimmy’s eyes were open but the color was quickly evaporating from his face. Nathanial spent the next few minutes crying. He’d never cried this hard. He thought maybe, maybe if he cried hard enough he could cry out the dirty pain but no, no this wasn’t going anywhere. He pummeled his body against the bed, wanting to be untied, wanting this disgusting thing out of him mouth. He started growling like an animal. He felt like in that instant he had the will to chew through wood. Get out, get out of here…
Nathanial rolled off the bed on top of Jimmy and in doing so, he pushed the knife in deeper. Then he shook his head around until the rag fell out of his mouth and he rolled off Jimmy. His heart raced in panic that Jimmy might have enough strength to grab him and hurt him again, but Jimmy remained very still. Nathanial looked around for something to aid him in getting his hands untied. Then that would be it. He’d finish Jimmy.
Nathanial crawled over to an old wooden table and lifted the leg with his fingers and started rubbing his wrists against it, loosening the handkerchief – his handkerchief, that Jimmy had tied him with. He went over to Jimmy and stood there for a minute, too emotional to do anything. Jimmy’s eyes were closed.
“Are you fucking alive?” Nathanial asked. He waited a few seconds before screaming. “WAKE UP!!!” Then Nathanial jumped on top of Jimmy’s chest and then he stomped on Jimmy’s head before dropping to his knees and taking the fork out of his stomach and stabbing him in the face and neck with it. He turned and kicked through the trash all over the floor, screaming the whole time.
23 “Mommy, The Door Won’t Open”
He stumbled out of the trailer. He didn’t know where he was. He knew he was in the woods but had no idea what part of the country he was. He was just lost. He stumbled as he walked down the couple of steps from the trailer and fell to his knees. It was dawn. The sky was breaking into a light whitish yellow. Nathanial shielded his eyes from the brightness and his head slowly fell to the soft, cool ground. He thought he’d cry but he couldn’t. You need to get out of here, just get out of here.
He managed to bring himself back to his feet and just started walking. His mind and the woods were the same – there was no sign of clearing. It was the same all over. The earth below his boots crunched sometimes, and other times it was soft and sank easily beneath him. When it crunched he pretended he was walking on Jimmy’s bones. He saw the dangling feet above his head and knew it was Jeremiah and kept going for another few seconds before he stopped and leaned against the tree and a whole new batch of tears exploded from his eyes. He saw bluish blonde hair near a rock, a limp lifeless hand. Clair.
He felt so sore, and his eyes were swollen from crying. And something was wrong with his right eye, it had blood in it. He tried to focus on the windy sounds coming from the highway. When he came to it he just kept aimlessly walking, stumbling a bit. A car passed him by, flying and picking up leaves in its path. He started to hold his hand up for a ride even though it was far too late, and no one would pick him up once they saw his beaten face and dirty clothes.
He carried himself along the highway, facing oncoming traffic. He would find a restaurant somewhe
re, maybe he’d get lucky enough to slip into a bathroom and clean up without anyone noticing. His body ached with twisted, hot pain. He had blood on his hands and dried vomit on his chin and neck and Jimmy’s semen in his hair.
He stood on the side of a highway looking down at a shopping center, his facial expression vacant. He spotted a Salvation Army. The parking lot was pretty empty, give or take a few shopping carts turned on their side. He made his way down the lot. He needed a change of clothing.
The thrift store had that used, lonely stench to it. A mountain of abandoned teddy bears were over in the corner. He spotted a white hoodie over them and grabbed it and quickly made his way to the back. The woman at the register couldn’t be more oblivious to her own surroundings, making it easy for Nathanial to move along without being noticed. The endless racks of clothes kept him pretty hidden. He spotted a mirror. He saw that the left side of his face was completely swollen and his eye was enlarged and swollen shut. His hair was a mess. He started to lose it again, touching his hair and folding his arms around his chest, about to burst into tears again. His adorned hat was gone. He put his hands in his hair, touching the sides of his head very lightly, and started to sob a little. He felt dead.
He went into the bathroom.