Archive of Our Own ^beta

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It was Mark’s idea. Well, not originally. He knew from a friend of a friend that his single aunt was writing letters to a stranger. Hot and heavy topics, blood and knife mentioned, Mark just raised his eyebrow at that and closed his mouth before it fell on the ground.

He went home that day, rested enough to be able to cope with the pile of textbooks he had to read for the night, and then went to sleep two hours before school.

Mark recalled it being quiet, in the middle of September, windy, and gloomy and it was already pitch black outside just after lunchtime. The streets were emptied out of children at those hours, the playgrounds already vacant and the only sound giving a sign of life was coming out of rusty swing chains.

His mother didn’t necessarily worry about him. She wasn’t fooling anyone with that artificial distress she tried so hard to fake when she didn’t even bother to ask where he was going most of the time. He didn’t remember the last year she knocked on his door either. It didn’t really matter.

But Mark got it. Something was wrong and he could smell it. It was in the air and somewhere in the empty aisles and somewhere at the corner of the last seat in the last row of the classroom, maybe even behind him but people didn’t care and kids didn’t care so his friends would still gather at this old library every now and then so he tried not to go to bed when it was just past six, just after saying his prayers in case there was still a god, a defender that could protect this land of this smell that was in the air.

Mark could swear that the library’s rug had never been cleaned up a single time and the little nasty doodles and words on the tables had never had the honor to have an audience except for Mark who was an observer at heart. The only face he would not like to observe, however, was the face of the librarian who did not take pride in wearing his badge anymore. The bathroom there reeked, and they were not allowed to go in and out every five minutes as if they were prisoners and once you’d be in, you weren’t able to get out.

The good thing though, was being offered a cigarette when they’d sit around those abandoned benches. On one of those evenings, between the haze of smoke and the fog that led to the mortifying unknown Mark decided to write a letter. It wasn’t like he didn’t enjoy the idea of having a diary. The thing was, that one didn’t go well last time when his mother had found it, and even worse, when she had decided to read it though she’d been trying to convince him (or herself) that she would never like to invalidate his personal space.

Mark didn’t know who she was trying to lie to. But the thing about letters was not only giving but also receiving. Someone who would like to receive, without judgment, someone far away, someone who had no idea who Mark was. Mark guessed that he loved to know and he loved it even more when others liked to know back. So he started writing; it was rushed like a first draft should be and maybe he should’ve read it over a few more times but like a deadline being delivered at the very last minute, Mark decided to just send it and let go of it.

Anyone from twelve miles away could have received it then. It could be a single man in his thirties who stalked the teenage girl next door, or an angry parent going through all the bills with a mug of bitter coffee to wash it all down or a girl thinking he was a weirdo and throwing his letter in the trashcan as soon as she’d read the first few lines.

Mark liked the roaming of endless possibilities and the thrill that came with it but he also hated to wait.

It took him three days. Three whole days but three days was nothing compared to the feeling of opening the mailbox to see there was something there waiting for him.

And Mark, he shoved it into his backpack, got on his bike, and rode until he was back to the street behind their school. It was an empty ground with uncut lawn and cigarette butts everywhere he’d step on. The building next to it, he supposed, was an abandoned warehouse and the rest didn’t really matter. What mattered though, was the envelope he had on himself.

Mark looked at the ground, at the dirty bricks that smelled like urine, and decided to sit down regardless; he had waited enough.

He had learned how to pack his lunch since he was 8 and by 10 he knew how to commute from school to home and vice versa but at that moment, he tore at the envelope like he was an infant with an intense desire to destroy. The letter began to shake like an origami bird, ready to fly out of his hands and his hands felt too small to hold on to the envelope and his fingers too unfamiliar with the weight it felt from a single paper.

They were neat, both the paper and the handwriting. Written in cursive, Mark began to read with careful eyes:

Hello, Mark.

It's Johnny.

Chapter Text

It was all blurry after that. The heavy drops of rain began to stain the perfectly legible alphabets and the once clear, heavy, and filthy words started to fade and stain the paper. The fire of excitement burned and died down as Mark’s body began to shiver and like a scared little child with a desire to demolish, he closed his fist around the envelope until it got mushed in his hand like a well-cooked potato.

The sky growled and startled Mark who took a step back, looking around at the abandoned building in the back that didn’t matter until then and at the empty, soulless voids that weren’t there until then. Something in his little chest shuddered, and Mark knew, he knew the angry face of the gloomy sky was not the sole cause of it.

He left his bike on the back porch and locked the old, dusty wooden back door, despite all the difficulties since it had been ages since anyone had felt the urge to touch that rusty piece of metal.

There was a familiar quietness settling in the kitchen. But the familiarity of it terrified Mark for then someone else was aware of it. Someone from the outside. He didn’t take his lighter out of his pocket and he didn’t light that one single candle he would put on the center of the table after coming back home from school every single day after the death of his mother.

It was an act of rebellion. So he could turn around toward the window that was perfectly covered by the curtains and show that whatever Johnny had familiarized himself with was no longer there. He did not have an established routine. He did not skip lunch, he did not keep the house in the dark, he did not light a candle, and he was not a lone kid. And he was not playing house with himself for two years. 

But Mark was scared and covered in dirt and his eyebrows were drawing down with each step he was taking toward upstairs and he could do nothing to conceal that. He didn’t even have the heart to check the lock of the front door or touch the curtains and see what it was on the other side of that thin glass. Mark didn’t have the heart. Like when he hadn’t had the heart to run back home. Like when he hadn’t had the heart to look at the lifeless body of his mother who was lying somewhere on the bloody kitchen floor with open arms and a fisted hand around a gun. Mark had never had the heart. All he was good for was to relive that night, those thirty minutes of hell when the wheel took a sudden turn and his life crashed forever, again and again, every single night.

But the realization no longer made him weep or grieve. It was sickening. He could feel it crawling under his skin, in his veins, and crawling between his ribs until it could twist and twine his whole being and swallow him up.

The faint remained soul of his mother was not illuminating his pale face anymore. So Mark sat with it, letting the webs crawl and turn and dance in the dark as he listened with an unbearable awareness of his senses to a home that was suffocating in its inevitable silence and to the chaos, the loud world that was present outside, watching him, very closely as if it had grown eyes on the walls of the inside.

The minutes turned into hours and the clicking of the clock started to blend into the intolerable consistency of his daily routine. So his body calmed itself as his heart got tired of running. When there was a new sound to be heard in the early hours of Sunday morning, Mark opened his eyes. His wet sticky clothes were then dried and warm against his skin. He took hasty steps toward the first floor and the sound of the reporter got clearer as he dragged his foot down the stairs. But he stopped and turned his head toward the television.

“An 11-year-old boy with a red bike has gone missing overnight,” the man stated in a firm voice that was drained of sympathy with an idle expression that could not be mistaken even through the huge grains of their screen. The wooden stair squeaked under his weight. He took a look at it. His father turned his head from where he was sitting on his comfortable couch, his hand hanging from the armchair, still in his blue striped pajamas.

“Isn’t that Josh? The kid who lived across the street? I thought they moved out last month.” Mark tried to look for anything, for worry or concern in his voice, for sympathy for a boy that they used to see around the area every now and then, or for the family they used to wave at in the mornings.

“Yeah, yeah that’s Josh,” he replied calmly, tracing the cold handrail with his fingertips as he dragged himself to the kitchen. He did not need to take a second look at the picture of the boy. Mark had been warned about it. He knew it was coming.

He took the leftover chicken out from the fridge and set two plates out. One for himself and one next to him, for the vacant seat. And he wondered if Johnny could see that, his ugly routine, his ugly routine of being an unloved child.

“When are you gonna stop doing that?” The voice of his old man got more distant with each word. Mark saw no need for a reply for he had his reasons that nobody would understand. Maybe Johnny would understand. Maybe Johnny had found something interesting in the way he was so indulged in his boring life.

He unlocked the rusty lock with less difficulty that time then peeked at the backyard of the neighbors and saw Lucy wiggling her tail viscously at the sight of him. She dragged her big body over the fence and Mark gently patted her on the head before cleaning his bike. His bike was also a red one, like Josh’s. And Mark could not help but be filled with a certain anxiety that was already surging over him.

Even though the sky was clear, even though it was blue and filled his cotton candy clouds, even though the fresh air was finding a way to his lungs, Mark could not help but feel it. The uneasiness. There was something in the air. And there was something in that damn letter. Something, something, but Mark no longer had the envelope on himself and he did not want to remember it either. But Johnny remembered. And as he had said, he was a man of his word. A boy was reported missing and Mark wondered if it was all because he, too, like Joshua had a red bike.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately, Mark had never been much of a rebel. The fire in him had cooled down so he was that content, obedient dog that would hide his fangs under his skin and curl his tail under himself all over again. He kept riding around the town—his ugly routine—in the shadow of the naked trees with a straightened back and firm hands as if he took pride in his flashy red bike. But denial was a part of resistance. And resistance, Mark prayed, would bring the missing boy back.

He knew how to commute from home to school and he knew how to make eggs and how to wash his clothes and how to pretend to be a parent to himself but Mark was only seventeen, so young and so naive and he supposed even the best-trained who were twice his age wouldn’t know what to do with the information he had. If they knew, the bus would make a stop on the other side of their street like how it used to do and if they knew, it would be the sound of Josh’s bicycle that would be heard near their house instead of his.

On Monday, one day and a half after the disappearance of Josh and two days after receiving the letter, Mark greeted the new priest by the stairs and welcomed himself inside the familiar walls of the church. He sat at the second pew, where they always used to sit, while taking his hands out of his pockets out of respect and he locked his freezing fingers in a prayer.

Mark was not there with the intent of bargaining for forgiveness or begging for the ominous spell to be lifted off their town. He was not there to unload his bag of guilt either. God did not listen to the weeping boy he used to be. God just liked to observe, very much just like him. So he observed and tried to make sense of the stillness that was floating like clear water within the walls of the house of god.

The candles from the night before were still shimmering and Mark turned his face to the direction of the huge windows for the rays of sunshine to peck him on the cheeks. But he felt as though he was being watched and not by a protector or a defender but by a pretender. Maybe it was the frailty of his devotion and faith that was beginning to come to the surface. He sat there regardless, waiting, thinking, ripping himself apart for it was his sin to take responsibility of. Something that had started as a playful thing was then setting the whole town in a terrifying state. The abstract thread of his thought had tied itself to a concrete thread of a life, of a soul.

Mark avoided the gaze of the few other people that were sitting in separate rows but at a corner on the very last seat, he saw a new face from the corner of his eyes. Silky black hair and darting eyes. Silky black hair and nausea. Darting eyes and sickness. A sickness Mark had called for. A sickness Mark had summoned at his own will.

It was surprising to him that no one was bringing up the news at school, except for the teachers who informed them that it was the second night they would go out in search of Joshua. Mark’s father wasn’t very keen to join but Mark told him he would rather walk a mile than be questioned by the police again.

They looked into the woods and searched all the remote areas, areas Joshua probably didn’t even know existed. Mark and his friends smoked a little, laughed a little, and joked a little. They thought since Joshua was a sixth grader and they were twelfth graders they were safe. They thought that he had run away because the local news had said the boy was missing not that the boy was killed but Mark knew that there was something in the air lurking and that collective resistance, Mark prayed, would salvage them, even if in the back of his mind he knew the search was in vain and like they always said, if they’re not found within the first twenty-four hours, consider the possibility of them being dead.

The boys still rode their bikes and skates as if the land they were stepping on hadn’t witnessed the abduction of her child with her very own eyes. They gathered outside of the library in the cold—their ugly routine—and drank in hopes of warming up. It was surprising to Mark how unloved children were so used to seeking peace in an outside world that was cruel and inhumane. Nature was as dull as it was cold and the grass beneath them was dark and dried, unloved.

Mark stared into the unknown with his peers, staring with expectation in his eyes, expecting his audience, expecting to be met with the eyes of the guy who lived twelve miles away, the guy whom Mark had made many assumptions about in the meantime. It was unfair, truly because the tone of his letter was more personal and light. It was with the intention of writing to a friend, someone who would like to know.

Mark felt sick to his stomach because Johnny didn’t like to know. He already did know. He knew more than Mark knew and it was a little unfair how it was not a mutual understanding. Johnny knew Mark still set a plate on his mother’s side of the table and would light a candle to fill in her void after two years. He knew she was not very loving when she was alive but he also knew that Mark was so devastated that he would rather recall her as being a bitter mother rather than a dead mother.

He knew Mark’s father was having an affair with a lady from work. He knew Mark would use the word affair instead of dating because he couldn’t bear the sinisterness and the insensitivity and the idea of his father having a relationship stained with so much wrongness and lust after all that. How could a man be so cowardly toughened up to the point of neglecting his soft heart?

And Johnny knew. He knew that Mark spent his time wandering around like a little stray cat, that his clothes were dirty and his food wasn’t ready by the table, that he had no plans for college, and that he used to despise her mother’s dirty habit of drinking but he was drinking and smoking in the back of random alleys with his friends, that he still had her pills in the cupboard and her scarf in his closet.

Johnny knew way too much and Mark knew so little so he began to imagine. That was how life had always been for him, being kept in the dark with blinkered eyes but a colorful mind that could travel and fly out of the cage.

Mark felt guilty for letting his mind wander but he was a master at imagining so he imagined Johnny, tall, skinny, and with an aura that would scare him off. Tall, proud, and a monster. Tall enough to stand behind a tree, thin enough to hide behind one, and thin enough to be able to live inside the walls with eyes sharp enough to look through the dark, staring back at him into the unknown. Because the one that stands in the center of the panopticon could survey him but he, a prisoner, could only imagine what the observer would look like, if there were any at all.

But Mark wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He wouldn’t let his imagination lead him to a pencil, a piece of paper, and eventually to his desk ever again. Mark prayed, at night, with a candle burning out but when he woke up on Wednesday morning, four days after the disappearance of Joshua and five days after receiving the letter, the mailman handed him a new one.

Mark knew that god did not listen to his weeping children. He was just an observer in a panopticon, just like Johnny.

Chapter Text

Mark held the envelope lightly in his hand as if it wasn’t weighing heavily on him. He checked the address. It was sent from the same place. He lifted his head and looked around at the empty sidewalks, at the windows, at the missing child posters that were folded on all sides of the street, and at the closed doors.

After all, it was a small town and Mark had been seeing the same familiar faces since elementary school but the thought of it all being a joke was beginning to crawl under his skin, the thought of Johnny, which could have not been his real name in the first place, being a face he had missed in the crowd. He could be a teacher, the janitor, a bypasser bumping into him, a churchgoer, a newcomer Mark hadn’t had the chance to notice. And the weight of those endless possibilities was making his knees give in.

But the paranoia was more stubborn, so Mark pursed his lips and left the envelope in the mailbox in case the guard in the panopticon was watching him. The metal door shook violently at his touch, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. He would be watched from a distance. And from that distance, Mark hoped, his cold fingers and unsafe heart wouldn’t be easily picked up on.

Word was getting around that the police had been driving way too many times to Ian’s house. Mark didn’t fully understand why it would matter, but suddenly there were too many whispers finding their way to his ears that he was an aggressive man at home, that his girl was a clean freak because Ian was too messy, and that nothing in the case was working in his favor except for his girlfriend being his alibi.

Mark felt relieved. He felt relieved that the collective resistance had worked, that his prayers were heard. So he tuned in for he needed to hear more then. He joined his friends after school and listened as they kept talking about the same news over and over again, of how Ian’s house was down the road where that one supermarket was close to, of how Joshua would have reached the back area if only he would ride his bike down the usual path he would take, of how he would, indeed, do that sometimes when he’d want to buy himself something, of how Ian and his girl had only moved in a year and a half ago and of how, Mark didn’t know, there was a rumor of him having a past record in the system.

It all filled Mark’s lungs with fresh air and he let his head fall back as he rode and rode, letting the wind touch his face, letting it go through his hair. And just like that, the execution of another man had revived him. He stopped turning around, he stopped investigating the dark, letting go of the void.

Mark went home that night, sat at the table with his father as he handed him his warm cup of tea, and asked him if he had heard the news. He noticed the raised eyebrow of his father, the man he had shown no interest in initiating a conversation with, and still went on with sparkles in his eyes, a faint blush on his cheeks. He was brought back to life and it was beginning to show on his face again.

Mark knew that it was neither nice nor delightful. But almost a week had passed and the whole town knew that it was about time they had to face it, that the missing boy would not return to his home. Mark did shame himself for seeing the light but he knew something that others didn’t. Or at least he thought that he knew, knew of an evil creature more powerful than a man, more capable of a man. But it was all merely an illusion.

“Yes, of course,” said the old man.

Yes, of course. Of course, it had reached the whole town that it wasn’t a curse set upon their town. That it was just a sick man, just a sick man with a twisted mind. And when it was all over, when the man was behind bars, when they all had grieved when they were done with praying for the little boy’s soul, Mark could sit down at his desk, no longer denying himself the privilege of holding a pencil and a paper in his hand, and write back to Johnny, so he could tell him how wrong he was for messing with him; oh, how wrong he was about everything.

Mark ran down the stairs the next day, careful not to make a noise when closing the back door behind, and opened the mailbox just to tear the neglected envelope into pieces and throw it in the trashcan that would be emptied out and gone forever by midnight.

But it took the collective illusion just three more days. That was about how far it would get them until the low chuckle of god would come back flooding their land, taking their remained hopes with itself.

It was no rumor at that time. It was on their screen. Big, clear, and shoving itself in Mark’s face, the naked body of Ian hanging from a tree.

The bell rang. Mark opened the front door with his eyes still glued to the screen and the mailman, unaware of the horrific crime, handed him another envelope, looking rather bothered by stopping by their house too many times over the past couple of weeks.

Chapter Text

Mark didn’t go to school that day. He saw the bus coming and the kids leaving; the bus not making a stop in front of the street and the kids not waiting for a friend anymore. It was settling in all very quickly. Nobody was counting the days anymore, maybe except for the grieving family. The police had taken the sniffer dogs away. One minute they were looking for the boy, the next minute they were searching for his body and then it all had to come to a halt. They were expecting a stormy day, after all.

Mark stood by the window for another minute just eyeing the other house while clutching at the curtains, hiding behind it like a scared little dog.

It was the longest minute of his life from when he rested his hand against their doorknob to walking with his hands in his pockets to the other side. He kept his head low, looking at the clumped grass on the front door, at the three steps that would eventually get him where he wanted to be on the front porch.

The door to the house was unlocked, Mark noticed even before trying to knock on it. So he sheepishly took a look inside, trying to announce his presence. He took a peak at the surroundings, at the flyers with pictures of Joshua on them collecting dust on the floor.

“Josh?” Maria’s voice cracked. Mark’s heart sank inside.

The woman ran to the door with hopeful eyes that had not rested for endless days and nights. Her blond hair was disheveled and her clothes were crying on her petite figure.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Bronson. It’s me.” Mark’s own arms felt heavier than they already did as he watched the eyes of a mother being in a state of anticipation and grief at the same time. Mark knew those feelings very well.

“Oh, Mark. I’m so sorry. Please come in. We—I have been leaving the door unlocked. You know, just in case Josh comes back.” She rambled in distress as she turned to her position by the kitchen table where her cold cup of herbal tea was resting with the latest newspapers that were very much as neglected as the cup. When she finished her sentence, the realization hit her. The voice of her husband telling her how foolish it was, that their little boy was never going to step inside that door ever again was echoing through the walls of her head.

But Mark understood. The anticipation, the resistance, and the hope. So he smiled as he let the hood of his sweater fall.

“Yes, I remember my mom would do the same back in the day.” He chuckled with bitterness lingering around the corner of his lips and watched as Mrs. Bronson mirrored it. He felt the connection of their wounded souls building up but he remained distant, still standing by the door that he had left ajar. Just in case. Just in case.

The low laughter of theirs died and Mark, unable to maintain eye contact, let his eyes wander around, seeing the framed pictures of a happy family, a happy family that was destroyed in the hands of a man who was powerful, who was capable. Then he shut his eyes and fisted his hands in his pockets, trying to ground himself though it was unbearably hard to be present in his body in front of a mother to whom Mark had nothing to offer.

“Sorry, I know this isn’t the best time but—but I’m an only child too, and I—I know how it feels Mrs. Bronson.” Mark began to feel cruelly smaller; as a result, his words got cruelly smaller and fainter as he went on. His body began to tremble. He could not bear looking at her as the guilt was eating him alive but he kept going on.

“I’m the only boy at home too, so I thought maybe I could come over sometimes if you would like to have me.” With a crooked head, Mark looked up with glassy eyes that were anticipating, grieving.

“Or, you—you could even come over to ours. I mean, it’s only me at home, so.” But before he could even read the expression on her face, his vision was blurred by heavy drops of tears. It had been so long since he had cried and it felt as if the dam he had built up so high to cowardly toughen himself up—just like his father—was breaking down because Mark knew that he was not a coward or a man; he was a little child inside with a really big heart.

“Oh, my boy. Come here.” Maria smiled through her tears that were as heavy as Mark’s. She opened her arms for Mark so he dragged himself until he was in her embrace like a little boy, like her little boy, and Mark scratched at her cardigan, hiding his face in her chest.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” He kept repeating under his breath, repenting. But Maria was a mother and a mother could forgive a child even if that child wasn’t hers. But Mark could be. He could be her child. He could come over and spend time with her, and he could be loud and playful and a kid for he had never experienced being a kid, and they would find peace within the things that they were robbed of.

Mark could picture them perfectly. Two houses that would be filled with love and light instead of sinking in grief and loss. Mark knew the anticipation very well. And he thought, maybe, they could bring it back to life.

“You’re an amazing kid, Mark. Never forget that, never.” The mother cupped the child’s face in her warm hands. Mark leaned his cheek to her palm as he wept silently. It was damning to see her like that and think “How could a mother be so loving toward a world that was nothing but cruel to her?”

“You can come over anytime. You should join me for lunch after school. How’s that?” It was like a promise. She felt her remaining tears falling down her face as she caressed Mark’s hair with gentle hands, matched with a proud look in her eyes.

“That would be great, yes,” Mark mumbled again, calming down at the thoughts, at the anticipation of a better day. The mother kissed his forehead. Mark hugged her tight before leaving. The seeds of a better day were planted.

By the evening there was a message written by one of Mark’s friends on the walls: SPITTING ON YOUR GRAVE FUCKER!

Mark thought it was hilarious, hilarious enough to make him trip and break his little bottle of booze, and hilarious enough to make his eyes go black so he could forget the image of Ian’s body. Of course . Of course, it was ruled as a suicide. Of course, the sick man with a twisted mind could not bear the thought of wasting away behind bars. But Mark’s heart was not at ease.

Mark looked at the picture over and over again. He looked like he was crucified but with his hands dragged down by his weight, his body bare. It was humiliating for a man to die like that, stripped of his dignity. But the kids said he deserved it and soon they showed Roxanne’s interview, Ian’s girlfriend, or former, for that matter, on the news from a week ago and how she was already talking about Josh in the past tense as if she knew he was dead and they talked about how Ian had joined them every single night to search for Josh, how he was always at the front trying to stay as involved as he could and everything, almost everything lined up perfectly. But Mark’s body was still not at ease.

He slumped down on his way home but managed to stumble his way back to the back door. He tried to look away from the light that was coming from a rear wall sconce. It was too late for a barbecue and too late for the kids to play outside so Mark put all his weight on the poor fence to see what it was all about.

He saw his neighbor, Troy, who used to play video games with him at the arcade digging the ground. Strange but Mark thought he looked hilarious with his pajamas under his coat.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing? You’re gonna wake your parents up.” It must’ve been the alcohol, for alcohol brought to Mark what a sober mind could not bring to him and that was a great relief and desensitization toward all the odd things he had been hallucinating lately, like the eyes and the tall, slender figures and the so-real men standing behind the trees and the light poles.

He felt his cheeks turning red and he blurted words out in a way that were funny to his own ears but the tired face of Troy who was in agony did not seem to like the joke.

“Lucy died this morning, Mark,” he stated in a voice drained of color and Mark felt it kicking in, his gut twisting and turning and his whole body rejecting the cheap gas station alcohol that could only bring cheap, temporary relief and numbness to his state of mind.

“Did you check on her in the morning? I think she ate something poisonous,” Troy continued to babble out without facing him. It didn’t matter. The dog was put down and Mark hadn’t checked on her in the morning. But he could remember the first time he begged to go over to their house to see Lucy and he could remember her being small and himself being small and her small body fitting into his small arms and Mark was poisoned.

Chapter Text

The growls of the kids could be heard clearly from where he was standing. It was a beautiful day, indeed, with the sun shining down on his face and the cool breeze blowing through the leaves. When the bell rang ragingly and the kids started rushing out, Johnny stayed with patient eyes wandering around. He examined the faces from afar, trying to see a familiar face.

“Hey, kid, c’mere. You know where Mark is?” He stopped the boy who was passing by him by the arm. The startled boy raised his head, trying to get out of his grip. Johnny knew that face; he was one of the dudes Mark would waste his time with. They weren’t rotten fruits to the core; they kept Mark busy, content, calm even. But they were losing dogs and Mark, his little Mark wasn’t one of them.

“And you?” he said with a type of ignorance boys embodied at that age but it was not the answer to the question he needed. Johnny puffed his smoke in his face as he scoffed. The boy, accustomed to the smoke, didn’t cough but rather gave him a hostile look.

“I’m his friend. Now go get him for me.” Johnny clicked his tongue. The boy wasted another few seconds to scan him from head to toe, still not making a move. Johnny let himself be observed. After all, it was a good day, he felt like a good man. He had been waiting for that day for a long time and nothing was going to ruin it for him, for them.

“Mark, come here,” the boy yelled as he started taking heavy steps in the opposite direction, toward the school entrance again. And then, there he was. Mark in his navy sweater that was dirty and had dog fur intertwined in its fabric, with his sharp cheekbones that were unusual for a kid his age and a type of heaviness resting on his shoulders that kids his age wouldn’t typically embody. But it all was what made Mark, Mark, and not any of those other faces in the crowd.

Johnny watched the boy approaching him, whispering in his ear, turning his head in his direction, and when Mark traced his eyes Johnny’s facial muscles almost acted up on their own. He almost smiled. But Mark didn’t smile. His ambiguous expression turned into anger and worry found its way between his eyebrows and settled just there.

He shook hands with the boys and gave them a half nod. Johnny knew he was brushing them off. After all, he was more important than them. He was worth his time more than anyone in that whole town. He had made sure of that. So, he kept his pride like an armor against his chest and waited as Mark passed by the other kids, trying to draw as little attention as he could to himself.

“What are you doing here? Are you insane?” Mark cursed under his breath, hastily taking a look around to be met with all the familiar faces that were surrounding them and while they were, they made sure to take the opportunity and eye the new man up and down. Johnny was absorbing it all, all the attention, all the whispers, and all the stimulations that were going on around them. He looked excited, ready to jump on Mark as if Mark wasn’t fearing for the life of both of them at that moment.

“What? Are you embarrassed to introduce me to your friends?” He flipped his half-smoked cigarette on the ground, shoving his hands in the pockets of his black coat that was too big on him. He then took a little swirl around Mark like a cat getting all jolly at the sight of his owner.

“Back in my days, it was a cool thing, you know, to be seen with older dudes.” He lowered his head and pretended as if the height difference between them was drastic enough to make Mark feel humiliated and threatened. And, well, he did.

“Cut the crap, you psycho. You killed—people.” Mark hissed back at him, feeling goosebumps rising on his neck. He felt sick to his stomach but an unfamiliar surface of calmness was accompanying it. It was as though Johnny did not care that he was being seen by people who could start talking about him. It was as if he didn’t know how that crowd could whisper and whisper until word of mouth would reach the police station because he was unbothered and untouchable. He was an evil creature in disguise who was violent and capable. So Mark kept his worries to himself for it was better not to let Johnny know he worried about the threads leading to him in the first place. Mark didn’t know why he was even worried in the first place.

“Well, no shit. But I’ll give it to you, kid, you’re smarter than the police force in four states combined.” It hit Mark like a ton of bricks. He had the urge to take a step back. He felt the illusion of it all being in his head shattering right before his eyes. The flight mode kicked in, and Mark felt like he needed to sit for a minute for the heaviness of it to settle down.

Johnny was, in fact, the murderer. He was not a killer but a killer who was chained to multiple murders and he did stalk him and he did kill Josh and he did kill Ian and he was wanted in not only one but four different fucking states.

“Lucy too? Really? She was just a fucking dog.” He said as he took firm steps next to Johnny who was leading the way. He was frustrated and left with so many unanswered questions that he forgot he was letting Johnny show him the direction in his own town, Mark’s town! Johnny walked with light commotions, acting like he couldn’t hear him. Mark, however, was following him like a mad dog. He had a burning fire caged within his ribs. The void between the slender trees was echoing the flames of his words back at them. But Johnny didn’t mind. He kept on taking long steps.

“You see, Mark, I don’t really like it when you ignore me.” The man suddenly turned around and then stopped.

“She crawled under the porch to die alone,” Mark yelled in a fierce voice, trying to keep it as quiet as he could.

“This is not how you treat a friend. It’s kinda offensive if you know what I’m talking about.” Johnny spit right at his face. He couldn’t hear Mark or maybe he could but it held so little importance for him.

“What is it? Does stalking my ugly routine no longer satisfy you?” They passed by a few trees that would lead to the road to the West. Mark noticed that so he took his own pocket of cigarettes out once they were out of sight. Johnny realized that so he stopped momentarily to light his cigarette with his green lighter as if it was a routine, their routine, their ugly routine.

“They pay with their lives in exchange for yours,” he stated. Mark felt the uneasiness hitting his face when he watched the light, friendly expression of Johnny fading away.

“How do you think this makes me feel?” He frowned, taking a long drag from his cigarette.

“Dunno. Wanted? I can’t stand seeing them near you. The power you have, Markie. Don’t you feel it? The world revolves around you,” Johnny said with excitement coloring his voice. Mark looked up at him, trying to understand him, trying to see all the things Johnny could see that Mark was incapable of seeing, trying to familiarize his ears with the sound of his name being dragged like that, playful and giddy. Johnny had his hands opened up to the sky. He was horrifying, talking about the illusion of glorious things, glorious things that an earthly human being like Mark could not fathom the idea of.

“I feel guilty. I feel guilty for your sins.” He hid his face under his hood, looking at the dirty ground underneath. That was the reality of it all for him. It was all gore and guilt for him. And it was heavy.

“Is it a sin to love? You think your god could ever love you like this? Is it why it’s a sin? Because I am capable of loving more than god ever could?” Johnny asked as if he was vomiting those words out, as if they were stuck in his throat for a really long time. Mark tried to search for love in his eyes but he did not know what love was, what was to be loved by either god or the devil himself, Mark didn’t know. Was love supposed to feel like that? Was it supposed to feel suffocating and unbearable? Was Mark supposed to drown in it?

“Does my love overwhelm you?” And one last question for Mark, a boy who didn’t know the answers even to the previous questions that were voiced to him. But Johnny was patient, his eyes soft and his tone neutral.

“It terrifies me.” Mark closed his eyes, taking the bad smell of his clothes inside. Johnny turned away, his back facing him. Mark hated the idea of upsetting him. Maybe it was out of fear, maybe something Mark was unfamiliar with. But at that moment they were nothing more than friends. They were friends and Mark did not like to upset his friends.

“Fear and desire are two sides of the same coin,” Johnny stated. Mark tried to think about it, but desire was a land far away from him, so far that he could not even picture a mirage of it in his head.

“You think you’re not capable of receiving it. It’s okay; give it time.” He kept on walking. Mark noticed how hunched his back was, how he was, indeed, tall and thin but with subtle tensions lying beneath his spine, and how even a monster like him could be wrapped up in humanized shame like that.

“My devotion will make a god out of you,” he murmured like a madman under his breath, almost as quietly as a prayer—or a spell—but it wasn’t meant for Mark’s ears to catch up on. He was not able to understand. He did not see the glory in the roots of that sick obsession. But he would, eventually. Johnny would make himself clear. And they would be just fine.

They walked up the hillock with the haze creating a much-needed distance between them. Mark got into the passenger seat next to Johnny without another waste of words. He saw the bottles of booze pilling up and wriggling restlessly against each other like Halloween skeletons at the footwell so he helped himself to a bottle that was still half full. Johnny didn’t pay him any mind; he just gave him a lopsided grin and turned the wheel to a more remote area Mark had never gone to with a sex pistols’ song eating up the silence in the car.

“You should quit drinking, kid. Honestly, that shit damages your guts,” he warned in a voice that was rougher and had less of a sting to it. Mark took another gulp instead.

“Yeah, alright. Do something for me, will ya? I will stop by the gas station so you can give your dad a ring. What was his name again? Ugh, Tim, yeah, Tim. Tell him you’re staying over at Tim’s. I’m sure he doesn’t mind, right?”

Mark wobbled in his seat with uneasiness, just like the empty bottles between his feet.

“So what? So you can make sure they don’t come looking for me after you’ve killed me?” He asked with bitterness, pushing his back against the door further away from Johnny, hoping for it to drown under the rock music that was playing out from his stereo.

Johnny took a glance at him while taking another turn. He raised his eyebrow as if he was in disbelief. It scared Mark to death; one wrong step and the ice underneath his feet could crack and suck him inside.

“What’s the fun in that, Markie? I’ve got things to show you. Didn’t you want this?” He shook his head a couple of times, trying to be patient with his prey. It did ease Mark. He had imagined it, seeing Johnny, having concrete answers in front of him. They were friends, after all. They were friends enjoying their time together. They were friends but there was a possibility that Mark could’ve never gone back to his town once they had left.

Chapter Text

“Like what you see?” Johnny chuckled as he sat in front of him at the diner. Mark couldn’t help but look at anything in the background that wasn’t Johnny’s eyes. His presence and strong aura overwhelmed a boy like him. And it was inevitable; some people were sitting there and it made Mark extremely nervous. When he tried to look at the clock that was hidden behind Johnny’s head, it was two o’clock. Peak hour, Mark supposed. Johnny was a reckless man.

“You’re just different. Different from how I’d imagined you.” He lowered his gaze to his hands which were intertwined into a prayer under the table. He wondered how they looked from afar, how he looked, especially in Johnny’s eyes. Whether they could be mistaken as brothers or cousins, perhaps even close friends. His heart was swelling in his ribcage and it became harder to breathe with each ticking sound of the clock.

“It’s really hard, isn’t it? Sitting here with me, chatting. The more we know someone, the more we’re cursed to see them as human,” Johnny replied with one hand bent over his seat, his cocky grin slapping Mark across the face. Mark knew he liked the idea, the idea of him imaging Johnny, the idea of him not being able to think about anything but him. After all, he had worked very hard to make sure of that. Not a lot of people would crucify an alleged child molester in the woods or poison a dog for that matter, to make sure Mark had nothing left except for him. Then the whole town was in on it too, even the goddamn news reporters! Mark couldn’t remember the last time someone was dying to get his attention that badly as if they were starving for it, for him, to be specific.

And he was right about it all. Mark’s little heart clenched in pain when he heard that. It was, indeed, a curse to know Johnny was youthful and had a little heart caged inside his ribs, that it was beating, alive, that he was made out of flesh that could be cut by thin papers and had bones that could crack easily. It was a torment to see him being, well, a human. To see him in his human suit, a human suit that could be touched by death—could Johnny defeat death? How much could a mortal being get away with while still swinging and dancing in the shadow of death?

Johnny, relaxed and composed, kept looking over his shoulder to catch the attention of the young waitress who was still clearly older than he himself. Mark silently observed his confident chest, his sharp stare that would not shy away from staring at places a god-fearing man would not allow himself to look at, and his grin, a type of sweet grin that was sharp around the edges could charm any prey from a distance.

“Two classic cheeseburgers with fries and a side of coleslaw and for drinks, iced tea and a milkshake? Yeah, I think that’s it. Thank you.” Mark sat there, observant. He saw the way Johnny averted his gaze as he thanked the girl. It caught Mark by surprise. A man like Johnny didn’t look particularly good with words of gratitude articulated by his tongue. He looked like he would rather be alienated from such words.

“She’s a gorgeous babe, isn’t she?” Johnny then moved his head toward him, practically half-bent over the table to gossip to him.

“You even know my go-to,” Mark mumbled instead, uninterested in keeping up with the facade. It had become a game by then. Johnny would reveal something about Mark; then, he would search inside the library of his memories, wondering whether Johnny had drawn that information from his daily routine, a photo album that was collecting dust somewhere, or his old diary that was missing. In that case, it was from his routine, not the dairy: classic cheeseburger followed by fries and milkshake, no slice of pie.

“Yeah, and? Aren’t friends meant to know these things?” Johnny shrugged off, arms crossed and defensive. When Mark glazed at him, he still had a smile on but it lacked the usual warmth in it. Johnny was, indeed, a very sensitive guy underneath all those thick layers of facade.

“About each other, maybe, but I don’t know anything about you.”

Then there was a moment of silence between them that died down in the sounds of forks and butter knives hitting plates. Mark didn’t dare look him in the eyes. Eyes were distractive; they roamed and made a guy like him feel trapped; surrendering, he then had to make himself cruelly smaller in the gaze. He tried to tell himself that same old story as if his body wasn’t sweating under his sweater. The truth was that his mouth was betraying him. He wondered if it were for the lack of boundaries between them. He wondered if those sarcastic words would end up costing him his life.

“Well, that’s why we’re here, Mark. Look, I used to come here when I was around your age.” Johnny pointed his finger to the window, looking outside. When Mark stole a hurried look, he didn’t see any provocative expression on his face; so he followed his eyes. It came naturally to him as if he himself wasn’t upset, hurt, and irritated. As if his life wasn’t swept away by that man overnight. As if—as if Johnny hadn’t done so many horrendous things that made a man rot away in prison for indefinite lifetimes.

“With your parents?” His throat felt dry when he asked, a sign that it was a struggle to strike up a conversation with a man like him even if Mark had a tendency to loosen up after a shot or few; by that time he had half a bottle in his system, but the subsided wave of anger had given its place to anxiety and so Mark’s body buzzed with stress.

But he remembered that he had stayed up countless nights for a day like that. There were nights in which Mark had thought he would never get the chance to put a face on the monster at all, at least not until he would be shown on a television screen on the morning news. He tried to picture Johnny’s face on their cracked television back at home but the image did not come to him. Johnny looked best when freed, and fatally menacing at the same time.

“What? No, no, kid. Alone. I would take the only bus that would pass by this path, and I would get on it and go to that market, and buy myself a beer, and Jack the owner would let me have it every—single—time.” In another world, maybe, even in another lifetime, Johnny could be a great storyteller, Mark thought. He was an entertainer. It was in his blood to be a magician and something in his throat, the way he displayed the words made them sound colored, pigmented. He moved his fingers with lively souls dancing at the tip of them. But even a magician, Mark supposed, was doomed to be as desolate as he was.

Johnny paused, going back to his mind, and coming back to his body, continued, “He was an old hag; I think he didn’t see very well either, but I was also too big for my age.” Oh, Mark could see the physical evidence of it clearly in front of himself. There had been a rumor going around that Ian’s killer(s), yes, plural, were two mates. That made no sense, and not a single soul could believe that a single man alone could pick up that heavy chunk of rotten meat and expose it in that way. 

“Thank you, Lily,” Mark observed the way Johnny folded his arms to make room for the plates to be placed and observed as a bashful smile formed on his lips while his glittering eyes wandered on the waitress’s chest to find her nametag.

He saw her smile back, too. Ducking her head, she mumbled “Enjoy your food,” as she placed that little slice of sweet lemon pie—which they had not ordered!—on Johnny’s side of the table before walking away. It must have been the hunger that was throwing a tantrum in the walls of his stomach or else Mark would have thought that his gut was twisting and turning just by watching Johnny’s mannerisms around people, people from the outside world, people that didn’t belong to their world. It was then theirs and Mark was curious, possessive of it even.

In his head, Johnny was awkward, old, and wrinkled, perhaps even stuttering, stumbling, and with something that could be mistaken as coyness that would make people rather uncomfortable. A type of man that would have a peculiar little thing on his face, like a scar, but not quite bold and alarming like a scar, something that one couldn’t point their finger on, something like a morbid stare that one could only recognize if they were about to look too closely, too intensely. His handwriting, pretty legible and delicately written, could almost throw anyone off that Johnny was twice his actual age; it must have been the attitude that way played beneath the empty spaces of lines. When Mark looked at him, he remembered that he had imagined him as an old, respectable man among the crowd.

But Johnny wasn’t old or wrinkled. He spoke with conceit, his smile full and his eyes shimmering with emotions. He treated Mark like a friend, lighting his cigarette, warning him about alcohol, taking him out for lunch, and even entertaining him. It was impossible to feel passive in his company, he thought to himself. Mark had never been that easily taken care of. It was as though it came naturally to Johnny to be the type of man one would pray for God to stumble upon.

He had mischief in his eyes, and his boots thumped on the ground when he walked as if he owned that land but he knew how to be polite, and how to show gratitude. He knew how to be patient. Mark’s stomach twisted once more because that man—that man had the blood of innocent children drying up under his nails. He was vile on paper and had a mask so perfectly stitched to his skin in person.

“Sleeves up.” Mark felt startled when Johnny put his cup down, sending a vibration to where Mark was sitting. His mouth was still full of buttered toast. He moved with fierce fury. Then he was cleaning his mouth and clicking his teeth, acting all offended as if he had the right to worry about any of that, about Mark’s business.

All the years of parenting himself had Mark cornered in a comfort zone where nobody would investigate him for the way he dressed, walked, or the way he was withering away in silence. It was ironic to be noticed by Johnny out of all people and to have him lecturing him on how to take better care of himself. Mark didn’t see it in Johnny, to be a lecturer, and he surely didn’t see it in himself, to be up for one. But there they were, acting as though even the thought of sitting in front of that man in a dusty cell with his hands cuffed away wouldn’t be horrifying enough.

“I said, sleeves up, Mark,” he repeated louder that time. Mark held onto his fork and knife for dear life. It was becoming too much again. Mark didn’t remember the last time he was sitting at the kitchen table and having an older, wiser being mad at him. He didn’t remember hearing his name coming out of someone’s poisonous mouth like that either. His name on Johnny’s tongue was no longer just sound waves thrown into the air aimlessly, it was concrete and heavy. It was significant.

“I can’t, dude.” He looked around, clearing his throat, looking very much like Trill from eleventh grade when he was caught with cannabis in his backpack just after the lunch break. Johnny kept switching his gaze from his face to his clothed arm. His left eye twitched as if a bee had stung it. He was visibly irritated; Mark began to shake. He had realized very quickly that Johnny could be sharp at times. He had it in him to be headstrong and demanding though he could act careless at times.

“What’s that blood stain?” He asked, pointing at it with his eyes. He surely wasn’t letting go of that one.

“I asked what are those things?”

“I told you I feel guilty.”

“Bullshit. Couldn’t you just hang by the church and ask for forgiveness? I’ve heard your god is very forgiving.” Then he was yelling in a quiet voice, bending uncomfortably over the table again. He surely knew how to make the right intonations, when to rise and drop, and how to twist his tongue when articulating words to derive the best reactions out of him. Mark could almost feel it beneath his ribcage, just the sharpness of Johnny’s tongue leaving an imprint on his heart.

“I don’t really believe in those things anymore. I thought you already knew that,” Mark whispered as he got closer. It was perfect, really. That way, nobody could hear him stating that out loud, not even God himself, that he was wavering. It could be kept only between him and Johnny. Sinners like them, Mark supposed, could make very good companions to help bury their guilts with one another.

“You’re making it complicated, kid,” Johnny scoffed, throwing a French frie in his mouth and then chewing on it like it was chewing gum. He was his mask again, laidback and uncaring and chilling to the bone.

“You. You made it complicated,” Mark replied, his stomach rejecting the idea of another bite.

“Did I ever tell you to go chop yourself up? Hell, no!” scorned Johnny as his palms hit the table with just enough force to reach Mark.

“Stop blaming yourself. Blame the world instead! This land owes her kids many things.”

Mark watched carefully from his greasy long bangs, the heated hatred in Johnny’s cracked smirk that was widening by the second.

“I give you all of this, and this is how you respond to my work. I think you completely misread the room.” My work— Mark looked up before closing his eyes, praying that resistance could make those words vanish away. But he wasn’t a rebel. All he had was a sharp tongue and a bitter tone—which he had inherited from his mother—that could be bent over in half if he kept it up. Johnny definitely had a temper.

Mark had told his father that he would be back home by tomorrow afternoon. He knew it wasn’t a promise. Mark was too old to go missing. They would assume that he had run away. Boys his age always ran away, right?

“Well, there wasn’t much to interpret really, except for a dead dog and a fucking hanged man. And that boy—that boy, Johnny. I went to his house. I searched for him along with others. I begged his mother to forgive me. You put this burden on my shoulders.” Mark let the words run faster than he had the capability to chase after them. There was guilt laced with hopefulness in his confession as if a man like Johnny could ever sympathize with him. But there was no one else, neither on the ground nor up in the sky, that was fit enough to hear those things. Johnny was the fittest. After all, he had dragged Mark into their world.

“No, no, I didn’t, Mark. You just love carrying burdens.” Mark’s face turned pale as he watched the way Johnny’s muscles moved with such vigor to articulate that clear negative answer and then repeating it and then rerepeating it to make sure that it had perfectly fractured Mark’s tiny little skull.

It had become impossible then. Mark realized that Johnny was capable of feeling neither sympathy nor guilt; the two would always go hand in hand, and if seeing him in such agony wouldn’t shake his heart, then slaughtering others could hardly crumble him.

“Don’t you see it? You were already on your knees repenting. I gave meaning to your deep-rooted shame. I gave you a reason to buckle harder.” Oh, and Mark did feel it, that little snippet of poison dripping from his fangs. It was spat right at his face accompanied by Johnny’s very low voice and his very stingy tone.

“You can put a name on it now. Humans love that thing.” Yes, Mark had, in fact, put not one name but multiple names on it. How foolish had he behaved! He had forgotten that he was always like that. He did not need Johnny out of all people to remind him that he had been growing up with a tendency to feel responsible for the things that were out of his control as a kid. But he had been made responsible to always worry for a sick mother who could not bear even the slightest movement of a light feather and Mark was always the problem and the unwelcomed and the unloved and if only he knew how to weep louder and bleed louder—and Johnny was right!

Johnny was right. And that little silver cross was heaving on his neck. It was filled with shame. Everything, everything inside him was full of pure heavy shame. And the only remedy was nothing but to kneel and bleed away under the weight of responsibilities that were not even his.

“This—this burden, this savage life, it chose me. Just watch me play, can you? Be my friend, Mark.” Despite being swallowed by that thunder of emotions spiraling in his heart, Mark was able to see the boy’s broken smile. Those savage lives, two broken boys. Mark wondered if they were deserving of being the chosen ones. And he knew, just like Johnny, that he was not very keen about his savage life either.

“Go get in the car, kid. We got a long way to go.”