Chapter 3

My stomach starts to rumble, waking me from my deep slumber. Uggghh…I’m hungry.

I look over at the clock on my night table, and see that it’s only three in the freakin’ morning. Why must I wake up at such an ungodly time? Oh well. I guess I’ll just go downstairs and get something to eat.

I feel my way down the dark staircase, using the wall as a guide. Once I’m at the bottom of the stairs, I make a right turn, and head into the dining room, going straight through to the kitchen. I turn on the lights, and once my eyes have adjusted to them, I blink over at the table counter where I see Spiderman making a sandwich.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

He turns around and motions for me to be quiet. I give him a questioning look, silently demanding an explanation.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The sound of the annoying alarm clock wakes me up. I groan and roll over to turn it off, then fall back asleep.

“Jack!” I hear a distant yell. It’s probably just my imagination.

Someone barges in my room and yells my name again.

“JACK!”

“WHAT?!” I scream back, disoriented from my wake. I look at my night table to see what time it is.

Oh, fuck! I silently curse to myself.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I demand, looking reproachfully at the tall, slender Asian girl standing in my doorway. Okay, so she’s not so much a girl as a ravishing woman. (Lavine, to be exact. My girlfriend.)

Her sleek jet-black, brown-tipped hair hangs in a stylish bob around her heart-shaped face, and her arms are crossed in front of her ample chest as she regards me with her long-lashed, slanted brown eyes.

“Well, you should be able to wake yourself up,” she retorts. “It’s your own fault.”

I roll my eyes in response, and she grins, before gliding over to me, graceful as a cat, and crawls across the bed to give me a deep kiss. I kiss her back, a satisfied smile curling my lips as contentment spreads throughout my body.

I nestle my head in the crook of her neck, and whisper, “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

After a moment of cuddling, I slide out of bed, pushing the white duvet cover off me, then hurry to get ready for school. I’m late as it is.

I dash through the hallways with only about five minutes before school starts. Running along my normal route, I make it to my first class with one minute to spare, only to find I’m in the wrong room. Embarrassed, I step back into the hallway and look at my timetable. It’s October; you’d think I’d already know my schedule.

Since our schedule rotates every day, and I had Maths first period yesterday, then spare second, that means I have two periods worth of spares, then lunch, Chemistry afterwards, then Issues in Human Rights, and Maths last. Well isn’t that just peachy. I guess I didn’t have to hurry to school after all…great.

With a big sigh, I wonder what I should do to pass time. I have about an hour and a half (or more) until lunch, so I decide to go to Blue Vale Hospital and look over some paperwork.

I walk down the hallway and go to the main office to tell them that I need a cab waiting for me at the front of the school in about five minutes. As much as I hate going to work with my school uniform on, I don’t want to go back home and change.

I arrive at the hospital by 9:30, and after I get out of the cab, I realize that my classes start in forty-five minutes.

Fuck it, I’m skipping school.

Cue evil grin with equally evil background music…oh, and you can’t forget the evil laughter. You can NEVER forget the evil laughter.

I enter the hospital, saying hello to my coworkers as I pass them, and head into my office on the third floor. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure Blue Vale Hospital is the second largest hospital in England. Hm.

A deep groan escapes my lips as I eye the paperwork waiting on my desk. Great. I have a whole pile of crap to do today.

After staring at it a moment longer, I decide against that and instead opt for Zain’s file. Far more interesting reading. Honestly, there’s something wrong with that kid. He’s barely alive one minute, then he’s his usual rambunctious self the next…there’s something seriously wrong with that.

I walk across the room to the filing cabinet tucked in the right corner near my desk, which is conveniently positioned next to the window. I love that window; it distracts me from my work and allows me to have a little peep at freedom, without which I would have gone insane long ago. However, I think at least 25 of my sanity has already left me, so that gives me only 75 left for lifelong stability. Huzzah! Three cheers for me!

Trust me, though, don't take life too seriously, or you won't get out alive. My uncle was a workaholic, and he died of the overload.

…I have no idea who I’m talking to.

“Who are you talking to?”

I glance back to see Luke at the door staring at me strangely. Well, actually I glance up, considering he’s about six feet tall. He’s my handy dandy assistant.

“Uhhh…no one. And Mark Hamill is sooo much better.” Cue smile.

Luke shakes his head, stares at me for a second, then leaves.

‘Kay now back to work.

I take out Zain’s file and look through papers with all the procedures and exams we did after his…whatever it was that turned him into a bloody mess (literally).

WHAT THE…?!

Zain’s anatomical quirks are all his own and his physiological results are inconclusive; looking at his other medical tests, it seems like Zain is an alien.

OMG! What if he really is an alien?! OH MY GOD!

Okay, hold on, Jack, think rationally…Zain’s not an alien, there’s just something seriously wrong with him.

I’m pacing around, not looking up from the file in my hand, and I suddenly collide with something, causing me to stumble backwards and fall with someone on top of me. Now what?!

All I can see are clouds of blue filling my vision. What the hell?! How did I end up outside?! Holy shit! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Okay…wait, just relax. Breathe, Jack, breathe; skies don’t fall.

Once I steady my breathing, my heaving chest starts to smoothly rise and fall, and the blood stops pounding in my ears. I blink once, then twice. Check. Eyes are okay. I turn my head from side to side, slowly, making sure I can move my neck, then I lift my arms up in front of my face and twist my wrists to see if I sprained anything. Nope.

Going through all of my little procedures to make sure my body still functions, I find that, yes, it does. Yay.

All of a sudden, lips are pressed against mine, and I feel a slight tug as hands rub against my chest.

HOLY CRAP! I’M BEING RAPED! BY A FREAKING GHOST! I’M GETTING GHOST RAPED!

Before my mind can properly comprehend the situation, my hands swing up and slap something solid. What a manly thing to do. Okay, so maybe I overreacted and it isn’t a ghost, but you never know.

“What the fuck, Jack?!”

The person grabs both of my wrists and pins them over my head, and since he’s straddling my waist, I can’t kick him away.

Goddamn.

The face slowly pulls away from me, revealing the identity of my attacker. He’s one of those people that have angelic features and shouldn’t be included in today’s society because they’re so fucking gorgeous. Light blue eyes (hence the blue clouds I saw earlier…), short blond hair, creamy skin, and the body of a god. But he is no angel, I tell you. I’m sure he’s the spawn of the devil, and I tell him so on a daily basis.

“What the hell do you want, Dustin?” I demand, giving him a death glare.

“Can’t I kiss my best friend on the lips every now and then?” he asks innocently.

“Uh, let me think about that...no.”

“You know you like it,” he says with a grin.

“Let me rephrase that for you so your tiny brain can comprehend what I’m saying: FUCK NO!”

“Oh, come on…”

“’Kay, you know what? Fuck you. Now get the hell off of me.” I’m really annoyed now.

He reluctantly gets off and stands up, offering a hand to help me up. I brush it off with a scowl.

“If you’re going to be a baby, please do it on your own time,” he says with a sigh of frustration. “Now take my hand.”

Glowering, I take his hand, and he helps me up.

“’Kay, so why are you angry this time?” Dustin asks.

“Work is pissing me off and I’ve only been here for fifteen minutes. And what do you mean by ‘this time’? When am I ever angry?”

“Umm…let’s see…” He takes a moment to think about it, before saying bluntly, “Like, all the time.” I can tell he’s being sarcastic to piss me off.

I sigh, crossing my arms. “Answer me this: why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation with your family?”

“First of all, I had last minute work before I go, second, I’m not going until tomorrow, and last, you can’t get rid of me that easily,” he lists off with raised eyebrows and a smirk.

Well, I guess I can’t argue with that. Although I’m a bit bitter about that last bit…

Suddenly, Dustin steps closer to me, backing me up and pinning me between the desk and his muscular body.

“Wouldn’t sex on a desk be kinky?” he murmurs with lust in his eyes.

“No,” I retort bluntly. “Now get away from me.”

“Never,” he purrs, arms wrapping around my shorter frame.

His lips descend to my neck and start kissing the sensitive skin there as his body slowly presses into mine. Despite myself, a whimper escapes me, and my knees weaken, only Dustin and the desk keeping me from becoming a quivering pile on the floor. Dammit, he’s good. The air is thick with lust as his hands find their way under my shirt, and I bite my lip to keep from crying out. Suddenly, he’s unzipping my pants and pulling down my boxers, before grabbing my hips and hoisting me up onto the desk. Next thing I know, he’s pounding into me, hitting that golden spot, and I can’t stop the scream that the action pulls out of me. His hand grabs me, causing me to gasp and dig my nails into the wooden desk. Everything about his body is moving in perfect rhythm, pushing me to the edge. Ecstasy runs through me and I start writhing on the desk, biting his shoulder to keep from screaming. Dustin makes a gasping noise, and I can see that his heaving chest is covered in sweat. I kiss him just as he gives one last thrust and we both come, gasping in each other’s arms. We lie there panting and not saying anything to each other, although I can feel the smugness radiating off of Dustin.

Well. That wasn’t supposed to happen. But I guess that’s always the case.

Before Dustin leaves I tell him to fuck off and never return, and also to have fun on his vacation. See, I’m not a complete jerk.

Once he’s gone, I quickly run to the bathroom in the hall for a shower. The rest of the day is spent doing paperwork and trying to decipher Zain’s file. I don’t return to the dorms until around one thirty in the morning, and the entire time I refuse to let my mind dwell on what happened with the devil-spawn known as Dustin.



I hear Jack come in. A quick glance at the clock shows it to be really late at night (or really early in the morning, depending on your view). Either way, that man pulls odd hours.

Oh, did I mention that Jack, Cailen, Shane, and I share a dorm house? Well, we do. We have the first floor. There are three floors in each dorm house and twenty rooms per floor with at least four roommates per room. But by the way it’s designed, it seems like there are four different rooms, although it’s basically only one.

Whatever, let’s just say it’s like a fucking mansion.

I turn on my Playstation 3 to play Tekken 5, determined to defeat crazy Heihachi Mishima. All of a sudden, I hear a bang on my door and I jump. Thinking it’s a killer out to get my goods (i.e. manga), I get my wooden bat ready to knock the person’s head to outer space. Next thing I hear is clawing at my door and moaning…WTF?! As I hold my bat ready, I slowly open the door and am attacked by a force none other than Cailen.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, surprised.

“I heard you put your Tekken 5 into your Playstation,” he replies casually.

“How the hell can you hear that?”

“I was deprived as a child, what do you expect?!”

“Whatever.”

We go into my room and sit on two egg chairs in front of my 47" Plasma LCD HDTV. My pretty…yes, I boast.

“Question!” chirps Cailen, raising his hand in the air.

I sigh deeply.

“Put down your hand, Cailen, we’re not in school. What do you want to know?”

“Where did you get you that TV again because last time I checked you had a dinky 25” TV that you got from K-Mart,” he rambles.

“A friend gave it to me because he loves me, unlike you.”

Cailen puts on his puppy-dog face.

“I love you, too,” he says in a whisper loud enough for me to hear.

I roll my eyes. “Yes, I know, you keep on telling me that everyday. Anyway, if you’re not playing, get out of my room.”

“I’m playing, I’m playing!”

He grabs one of the controllers off the floor and crosses his legs like a little kid, eager to play Tekken.



My eyes squeeze shut as light seeps through my eyelids. I get out of my bed and head into the bathroom for a nice hot shower. Once that’s taken care of, I saunter off to the kitchen on the ground floor. Upon reaching the last step, I see two men in uniforms standing in the middle of the grand hall. I think they’re police officers. But what are they doing at my house? I take a hesitant step towards them.

“What should we do with their bodies?” asks a voice.

I stop and I look at the ground seeing two dead people on the floor, but I can’t see whom they are, due to the sheets placed over their bodies. I slowly start to walk over, but my foot steps on something cold and slippery. Slowly, I recognize this as blood. I stare at this weird substance beneath my feet, thinking vaguely that it might swallow me whole. My ears suddenly pop, and every sound enhances. The ticking of the clock, the beat of my heart, each breath I take… My green eyes flick up, and I notice the officers watching me. They seem to be studying and talking about me. I catch fragments of their conversations, all along the lines of “Who is he?” and “What are we going to do about the boy?”

Someone is trying to get my attention. I didn’t even hear or see them approach. I look down to see his hands on my shoulder, a distant thing. He’s asking me all these questions, but I just give him a blank stare, unable to decipher what he’s saying. In the corner of my eye I see the other man just staring at me with pure disgust. He walks over to me, every footstep falling louder, and his whole body radiates repulsion. Once he’s in front of me, he brings his hand up and delivers a stinging slap. I hear another ‘pop’, and all the sounds come flowing back. He’s shouting at me.

“What have you down, you little brat?!”

I just stare at him in shock, not understanding. He grabs me by the hair, pulling at it as he drags me over to the covered bodies. He pulls backs the sheets and forces me closer to look at the corpses. My eyes widen in shock. I can’t believe what I’m seeing…or rather, not seeing.

The bodies are too mutilated to even figure out which parts are which. They’ve been hacked up into little pieces. The only things that I know are missing are their heads.

I slowly look around the room, my brain taking in everything. The walls are splattered, no soaked, with blood, and they’re completely destroyed. I look up at the crystal chandelier and finally find the missing heads. Flies are buzzing around them, promising future maggots with increasing decay. But the things I notice most are the eyes. They’re staring at me with wide expressions of shock and betrayal, as though they cannot believe the manner in which they were killed. Or the identity of their murderer.

I hear a distant scream, only vaguely realizing it’s me.

---

I wake up screaming, my eyes flicking widely about the room. Once I realize where I am, I sit there, panting. Just a dream.

I check the time, pushing the sweaty strands of hair off my face. It’s six o’clock in the morning. I look over to see if Zain is in his bed. Nope. Where the hell is he?

Shakily, I make my way over to his mirror and peer at my pale reflection. I feel a sense of shock when I see silver tears streaming from my eyes, tainting the skin. Nauseous, I dash to my room and run into the bathroom. Dropping to my knees on the cold floor beside the toilet, I proceed to empty my stomach. It doesn’t take long. I lean against the porcelain for a few minutes, gathering myself, before getting up and going over to the sink. I rinse my face and mouth with water before opening my medicine cabinet and grabbing my pills. I desperately gulp them down, then stumble out of the room and to my bed. God, I hope I have no more dreams…