The Wounds in the Walls (3 page)

In the third second they were both rearing back, because the house was shaking. The house, in fact, was
growling.
Pete turned to Mike in alarm, and Mike looked at him in much the same way.

This was not what was supposed to happen!

Peter,
a voice whispered. It was disembodied, coming somehow from the very walls of the house itself.
I’ve been waiting for you, Peter.

Mike heard a ripping sound. He turned in time to see the floral wallpaper peel away as gashes appeared there one after another, long, even scars forming in the wall above the sideboard.

“Fucking hell,” Pete whispered, his hand tightening on Mike’s arm.

“Agreed.” Mike wrenched his gaze away from the gashes still forming in the wall and pushed him at the door. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

Oh, I don’t think so.

Mike could feel it happening before he saw it. He was running now, and so was Pete, and they were headed for the front door, but it was like a shadow was rising up behind them and extending just a few beats ahead over the carpet and toward the front of the house. It hit the front door—and the door vanished.

Pete cried out and skidded to a halt. “What the
fuck
! The doorway! It’s gone! It’s fucking
gone!
” He turned to Mike, full of fear. But there was also rage, and it was aimed at Mike. “What the fuck did you do?” he demanded, and he reached for Mike’s shoulders.

“I—” Mike said, but it was all he managed before Pete slammed him against the wall.
Stop,
he tried to say, but couldn’t. He just fought for the air Pete forced from his lungs, reaching up to clutch at the other man’s collar.

And then the ghost was there, brighter and more vibrant than it had ever been. It reached out and touched Pete’s arm. “Stop,” it said. “Stop, Peter, and come with me.”

Pete stopped. He pressed Mike hard against the wall and turned, eyes wide, face draining of blood as he took in the ghostly form beside him.

Well
, Mike thought, as darkness closed in around him,
at least now they can see each other.

There
was a ghost standing beside Pete.

He tried to tell himself he was just seeing things, but after what had happened first in the dining room and now to the front door, hallucinations were a hard sell. Either these things were actually happening, or hallucinations had taken over to the point they might as well be.

The ghost’s hand was cold on Pete’s arm, but it was definitely there. It squeezed gently in reassurance. “Can you carry him? Because we need to get out of here, and we’re going to need him.”

Pete nodded and hefted Clarke up. He was a big guy, but Pete was no slouch, and it was only a little strain to heft the man over his shoulder. Clarke groaned, but other than that he stayed quiet. Feeling only marginally bad for knocking him out, Pete turned back to the ghost, waiting for further instructions.

He was looking at Pete, impressed. “You’re stronger than I thought you’d be.”

“You said you knew a way out?” Pete prompted.

“Of the house? No. That’s not going to happen now. But I can get us somewhere safe. Can you get him upstairs?”

Pete looked in apprehension at the dilapidated stairway.

“They’re in better shape than they look to you, I promise,” the ghost said. “Can you?”

It wasn’t just the construction of the house that was upsetting Pete. There was… something. Something waiting. He felt silly, even after all that had happened, and he couldn’t look at the ghost while he said the words. “There’s something bad up there.”

The ghost didn’t seem to find him silly at all. “Yes. There’s something very bad up there. But I promise I won’t let you go to those places.” He held out his hand. “Will you trust me?”

Pete did, almost completely, and that unsettled him. “Why couldn’t I see you before?”

“Because I was hiding.” He looked sad but also curious as he tipped his head to the side. “You can really see the wounds?”

Wounds? “You mean the gashes in the walls?” The ghost nodded, and Pete looked around him. The walls were heaving, moving in and out like lungs. And yes, the gashes were here, too, though they weren’t as deep or half as upsetting as the ones in the dining room. They were random like the ones in the parlor, and they barely cut through the paper. “I see them. How’d they get there?”
Why do you call them wounds?

The growling started up again, and the ghost reached out and took Pete’s hand. “Come on. We can’t stay here. It’s mostly bluster, but it can do damage enough.”

Pete wondered what “it” was, but as soon as the ghost led him forward, the feeling of foreboding increased. He stiffened, and the ghost glanced over his shoulder to give him a gentle smile.

“Just up the stairs and down the hall.” He tugged and ran a cold thumb across the back of Pete’s hand. “Come along, Peter.”

“Pete,” Pete whispered, but he came along, cold sweat breaking across his brow.

The stairs held them fine, but Pete noticed the ghost didn't touch the railing or the walls. In fact, he kept very firmly to the middle. Pete decided it would be best to follow his lead.

“Do you have a name?” Pete asked.

“Everybody has a name,” the ghost said. But it was five more steps before he said, “Call me Ara.”

The careful phrasing caught Pete’s attention. “Is that your name?”

“You have some pointed thinking for someone who wants everyone to think he’s just a clumsy laborer.” The ghost paused on the stair and gave Pete a rather focused look over his shoulder. His thumb moved absently over Pete’s hand, and he smiled a slow, knowing sort of smile that did funny things to Pete’s insides.

“How come I can feel you, if you’re a ghost?”

“Because you’re special,” the ghost replied, “and after Michael’s stunt downstairs, I suppose I am too.” He squeezed Pete’s hand. “Come. We’ll speak more when we get to safety.” He turned and started back up the stairs. “No, Ara isn’t my name. But I like it, and it will do well enough.”

“But why can’t I call you by your own name?” Pete dogged.

“Because we can’t both be called Peter,” Ara replied.

Pete suspected that was some sort of dig against him, and he glowered at Ara’s back. “My name is
Pete.
”

“Hmm,” Ara said, amused, but then the growling started again, and his amusement faded. “Come on. Have you still got hold of him?”

Pete nodded and hurried up the stairs as best he could with two hundred pounds of man on his shoulder.

The second floor was very dark, and it unsettled Pete far more than it had a right to. There was nothing remarkable about the darkness. No lights flashed, no ethereal ooze came out of the walls—nothing, really, except that it was dark and dull and stuffy hot. But Pete found he couldn’t look at the darkness very long, because if he did, cold terror welled up inside him and threatened to send him to his knees. If it weren’t for Ara’s cold hand leading him, guiding him, he didn’t think he could have made it.

“Go ahead,” Ara said quietly. “Close your eyes. It might help.”

“Why—what—?” Pete whispered, but he couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“Because the tutor’s room is down that way,” Ara whispered back. “That’s where the bad things happened.”

Pete nodded and fixed his eyes on the floor. But he could still feel the darkness pressing on him, so much worse than the strange growling and heaving of the walls.
Bad things.
He could feel them. He could feel them reaching for him. And it was definitely
him
they were reaching for.

I’ve been waiting for you, Peter.
That’s what the voice had said.

“Just a bit farther,” Ara said. “Almost there. That’s the way. Come on.”

Ara held open a door into the room and closed it behind them once Pete was through. Once the latch clicked in place, the groaning and heaving stopped. But it was here that Pete finally lost it, and he fell to his knees after all, sending Mike’s limp body gracelessly to the floor.

Somewhere safe,
the ghost had said. Fucking hell. Pete wasn’t sure there was such a place, not anymore. Not after this. They had gone through the door on the second story of a dilapidated house where the front door had vanished and the walls had whispered and heaved—

—and now they were in Pete’s bedroom, which looked exactly as it had when he’d left his trailer that morning.

Lover

Cold
hands came down on Pete’s shoulders, kneading gently. “Shh,” Ara said. “Come now, Peter. Calm down.”

Pete calmed, but only enough to regain his general concept of speech. “This—this is—it’s my—”

“It’s your room, I assume, yes?” When Pete nodded, Ara sighed. “If it helps, you aren’t actually here. It just looks like that to you. To me, it looks like my room.”

The ghost crouched behind Pete, still stroking and cooing softly, and Pete leaned back against him in defeat. “How? How is this happening?”

“I should have worked harder to keep him from bringing you,” Ara said. “I tried to act like I didn’t care, but he was too determined.” The ghost stroked Pete’s shoulder. “And I admit, part of me wanted to see you. After all this time, and you have the name too! Just like he has his. Can you blame me for my curiosity? But as soon as you walked in, I could feel the trouble coming. I should have worked harder to chase you out. I shouldn’t have let him make you touch me.”

“Touch you?” Pete repeated.

“Before you touched the wall and woke it, your hand went through me. I was standing there, pouting at Michael. Which I shouldn’t have done, but I suppose I always do.” He sighed and stroked Pete again, a sad gesture. “All this time, and I’m always the same. Do you think, Peter, that I don’t grow because I’m a ghost, or because no one ever truly does?”

“What?” Pete asked, well and truly lost now.

“That’s what he always told me,” Ara said, nodding at Michael’s still form. “He told me no one could change. He told me to forget what the preacher said in church, that we come into this world the same person we are when we leave it. At best, he said, we learn how to better be our true selves.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Pete said.

This seemed to please the ghost. “Oh, good. Because I always thought he was daft, myself. But he’s very handsome. Don’t you think?”

Pete studied Clarke’s pretty, chiseled face. “Did I hurt him when I dropped him?”

Ara snorted. “With that thick head?” But he crept forward and studied Clarke, then turned a worried face to Pete. “Now you have me uneasy. Will you check to see that he’s still breathing?”

Pete started to ask why Ara didn’t do it himself, and then he realized. “You can’t touch him, can you?”

Ara shook his head and motioned impatiently. “Please! I have no idea what happens to us if we kill him.”

It wasn’t you, it was me,
Pete thought, but he reached out and pressed two fingers along Clarke’s throat. He sagged in relief. “He has a pulse. He’s fine. Unless I gave him a concussion.” Pete pulled back one of Clarke’s eyelids, but he wasn’t really sure what he was looking for. “I didn’t hear a big crack or anything. He’s probably okay.”

Ara relaxed. “You’re certain?”

“Sure as I can be.” He arranged Clarke a little more comfortably on the floor, then sat back on his heels and looked at the ghost. “So what do we do now?”

He wasn’t ready for the wicked look Ara gave him. “Oh, I suspect we can think of
something
.” The ghost had been kneeling on the floor beside Clarke, but as he spoke he crawled forward to Pete, looking feral. When his hand slid up Pete’s leg, Pete jumped.

“Are you coming on to me?” Pete asked.

“I’m making love to you, if that’s what that means,” Ara replied, and he slid his hand higher.

Pete reached down and stilled Ara’s hand. “You aren’t my type,” he said, panicking, but even inside of his apprehension, he was aroused.

Ara grinned. “That’s funny.” But then he studied Pete’s face, and his eyes widened. “You mean—you don’t know? This hasn’t all been an act? You honestly don’t know?”

“Know what?” Pete asked, his voice breaking at the end.

Ara tilted his head to the side and regarded him again, then shrugged and smiled his naughty smile. “Do you know, I think it’s a bit more fun this way. The first time, at least.”

“First time?” Pete gasped as Ara’s hand escaped his and continued up his thigh. He shut his eyes when it closed over his groin, and he shivered when Ara leaned close and whispered in his ear.

“I’d like to suck your cock, Peter,” he whispered.

Pete was having a hard time breathing. “You’re a ghost.”

“I’m a ghost with a very wicked mouth.” Ara suckled lightly on the lobe of Pete’s ear. “And I have a very clever tongue.” He laughed, a very naughty sound that made Pete shiver. “Besides. I think we owe it to men everywhere as a sort of social experiment, don’t you think? We can say we are men of science.”

“What?” Pete said, but then Ara stuck his tongue in his ear again, and he groaned. God, it felt so good. No, Ara wasn’t his type, but there was something about him, something that pulled him to the man, or the ghost, or whatever he was. So he didn’t fight it when Ara pushed him back down to the floor; he shut his eyes and let go, giving over to sensation. But when the ghost’s cold fingers slipped beneath his shirt, he hissed.

“I know,” Ara said in apology as Pete’s belly flexed against his touch. “I know. But you’ll warm them up, Peter. You’ll warm all of me up. And it will feel so good, lover. Better than anything either of us has ever felt.” He bent and pressed a kiss over the center of Pete’s chest, then rubbed his cheek against Pete’s shirt, like a cat. “It’s been so long. So long. But I haven’t forgotten how.” His cool hand massaged insistently against Pete’s rapidly hardening cock. “That isn’t something I’m ever going to forget, not even in a thousand years.”

Pete supposed he should have been more creeped out about the fact that someone who admitted he was dead was undoing his fly and taking his dick in his hand, and that the lips sliding over his nipple were cold and lifeless. Probably it wasn’t the most intelligent of moves to be making out with a ghost or anyone else in a house that told you it had been waiting for you and imported your bedroom into the upstairs. But oh, Christ, Ara was right. Nothing had ever felt this good.

But thinking of the house drew another thought out of the fog of Pete’s mind, and he put his hand on Ara’s head to still him. He waited until the ghost lifted his head before he spoke.

“You asked earlier if I could see the wounds,” Pete said. “What did you mean? Why did you call them that?”

“Because that’s what they are,” Ara said. Some of the lust had faded from his eyes. “They are the wounds in the walls. And no one has ever seen them before. Not since they were made.” He bent and pressed cold lips over the center of Pete’s chest. “Please, Peter. Let me love you.”

Pete nodded, not even bothering to correct him on the name anymore. He just lay his head back and shut his eyes, opening his legs and inviting the ghost to do with him what he would.

Mike
climbed out of the sludgy darkness of unconsciousness and into the haze of what could only be an erotic dream. It had to be a dream, because in real life he could not be looking at a half-naked ghost and fully naked man, chests heaving, lips locked, hips thrusting as they moved in desperate symphony, chasing a rhythm as old as time. By the looks of things, they were well on their way to finding it.

God, but they were a feast, dream or no. Mike’s cock twitched in his pants, and he reached for himself without thinking. The ghost was on top, driving the act, making soft, sexy whimpers even as it reached down and pinched hard on Pete’s nipple, making him groan and thrust harder against his tormentor. Both their cocks were out, trapped in one of Pete’s hands, and they were thrusting together inside the sleeve his fist made, crying out with each new fissure of friction. Unable to stop himself, Mike cried out too.

The ghost lifted its head and looked at him, its eyes dark and white-less again. It smiled.

“Hello, Mikey,” it said, its voice dripping with sex. “Won’t you join us?”

It’s just a dream,
Mike tried to tell himself. But oh, it felt so real! “How?” he whispered.

The ghost laughed. “I’ve given myself a name, you should know. Call me Ara.”

“Ara?” Mike repeated, confused.

The ghost shivered in pleasure a moment as Pete thrust again and lifted his head to suckle on the ghost’s neck. “Yes. Ara. You told me once that it was the name of an Armenian god. The god of spring, if I recall correctly. I’m feeling a bit godlike today.”

“I—told you—
what
?” Mike stammered, lost now.

The ghost rolled its eyes, then shut them as Pete bit down. Mike shivered, his eyes shifting to the sight of the rough, handsome man he’d brought here nibbling on another man’s neck.
Not man,
he tried to remind himself. But it wasn’t working just now. This wasn’t an it. This was a man.

This was the hottest thing Mike had ever seen.

He’d never watched anyone have sex before, hadn’t even known it was something he wanted, but suddenly it was all he could think about. God help him, but he wanted to watch them come, wanted both of them together. His cock swelled against his hand. He wanted to
fuck
them, fuck them both. He wanted to bend them over and take them so hard—

Mike tried to cut off the thought, but it lingered, and he groaned, his fingers shaking as he fumbled for his zipper.

The ghost, his eyes still dark, his body still moving in time to Pete’s, his neck still a banquet for his lover, smiled at him. “It’s good to see you admit to wanting me again. I’m tired of watching you play at being so aloof.” His smile faded a little as he added, “I wish you could join us.”

“What—” Mike watched Pete’s tongue slide down the length of the ghost’s throat and briefly forgot what he’d been about to say. “What—what is happening?” He looked around at the dusty, faded room, at the creaky metal bed in the center. “We’re in the young man’s bedroom?”

“
My
bedroom.” The ghost pouted at him. “Why won’t you see me, Michael? Why must you make it so clinical? Are you that afraid of me?”

It was hard to keep his professional distance when he was watching two men have sex, but Mike did his best. “You aren’t a man. You are a manifestation of energy. You need to release back into the collective of the universe. I do not know you. We are not associated, except that I am here to help you find your way.”

The ghost’s expression turned dark and wicked. “I’m fucking him. Do you see that, Mikey? Do you see me fucking him?” His eyes went so black they burned. “Oh, it feels so good. So good to feel again, lover.”

“You’re not corporeal,” Mike whispered, but his eyes were on those cocks, those sweet, fat organs sliding together between a hand and two taut stomachs. God, he wanted to lick the pair of them.

“I am for him.” The ghost moaned and braced a hand against the floor. He turned to Pete, thrusting harder. “I’m real to him.”

Mike looked at Pete, who had yet to even acknowledge that Mike was there. “Is he—all right?”

The ghost nuzzled Pete’s cheek. “Peter? Mikey’s awake. Tell him hello so he knows you’re well, and then I’ll make love to you again.”