Spook

Chapter 11
Bits and Pieces

CHARLIE woke up thirsty and sweating next to Danny. Danny's arms were still around his body, the boy's head on his shoulders. He wanted to wake him up and tell him that he needed water. But he loved the way Danny's body fit perfectly in his.

He sighed.

He looked at Danny's beautiful face and thought about the way he took care of him the whole day. He still hadn't fully regained the control of his limbs when he woke up the morning after Oliver and Marcus attacked him. His arms and legs still felt weak, although he could move them a little more and more as the hours passed.

Danny, however, decided not to go to class and just stayed with him the whole day. He never left him alone. He fed him. Cleaned him up. Changed his clothes. He just stayed with him the whole day. And if Danny had to go out of the room even for just a minute, he made sure that either Joseph or Tim was with Charlie.

But most of all, Danny just lay beside him and had his arms protectively around him almost all the time. Even when Joseph and Tim were there. Danny didn't seem to care that other people were seeing them cuddling in bed together. And Charlie loved every second of it.

Last night was kind of hazy for Charlie. He remembered falling asleep in Danny's arms. And he remembered waking up several times throughout the night having the same nightmare.

He was being attacked by a group of men. They didn't look anything like Oliver or Marcus, which was weird. They were different people. And there were about five or six of them.

They had overpowered him after they put some drug on his drinks. They tied him up on a bed and started touching him and kissing him all over. He was pleading for them to stop, but they wouldn't listen.

They started to tear off his clothes and rub their hard cocks on his body.

Just when one of the men was about to slip his dick into his mouth, the door burst open and Spook came in.

Spook looked raving mad as he began to beat up everyone. He got hold of a baseball bat and broke a few arms and legs with it.

By the time Spook calmed down, every single one of his attackers were lying on the floor bloodied and whimpering.

Then, he would wake up panicking. And he would see Danny's face right next to his... and he would feel peaceful and safe. He would fall asleep again.

Then he would dream the same dream again.

He knew that Spook got to him just in time and saved him from Oliver and Marcus. But what puzzled him was that, in his dream, neither Marcus nor Oliver were there. And there were more guys attacking him.

What bothered him was that Spook had that same crazy look in his eyes. They weren't gleaming red in his dreams... but it had the same raving mad look. And it was scary.

Danny stirred a little. A couple of seconds later, his eyes opened and saw Charlie staring straight at him.

Danny smiled at Charlie. Then he got up and got a bottle of water from the mini-fridge. He opened the plastic bottle and helped Charlie to sit up. He gave the bottle to Charlie, guided the bottle to Charlie's waiting mouth and gently poured the water.

After he drank his full, Charlie looked at Danny and smiled. "Thank you," he said.

Danny smiled back, took the bottle from him and put it on the study table. Their eyes locked and Danny couldn't help but touch Charlie's face. Then, he slowly wrapped his arms around Charlie and held him tightly.

"I'll do anything for you, Charlie," he whispered. "Please know that."

Charlie rested his head on Danny's broad shoulders and wrapped his arms around the boy's waist. A tear fell from his eye. He wished that this embrace would last forever.

He didn't dare move a muscle.

He woke up the next morning feeling a lot better. The drug was almost totally flushed from his system and he was already regaining the strengths of his arms and legs.

He still didn't want to leave the room and he only went out to go to the bathroom. Danny was still like his shadow. He never left his side.

They spent the weekend holed up in their room just staring and smiling at each other... holding each other... barely talking the whole time. They just enjoyed the silence and being so close together.

Joseph and Tim visited to bring them food. Danny simply refused to leave Charlie.

THE DOCTOR said that a nice warm bath would help ease the pain. But so far, it didn't help much. He winced as he tried to stand up from the tub. No broken bones; just a bruised rib, a black eye, a few bruises on his limbs and an extremely injured pride. But he was able to obtain x-ray films of broken bones from his doctor. Yes, it pays to be part of the Group, as they would soon learn.

He quickly dried himself up and put on his bathrobe. He walked out of his bathroom and didn't bother to put on new clothes in his room. He proceeded to the living room where someone was already waiting for him.

"Hello, Sam," he greeted. Sam looked at him and he could see pity on Sam's eyes. He could feel the anger beginning to boil in his guts. He held it in. There was no use alienating Sam, too. He needed him.

"Are you feeling better, Oliver?" Sam asked.

"Yes," he answered. "It really looks worse than it feels."

He was lying, of course. He could handle the physical pain. What he couldn't bear was the humiliation that this incident had caused him. Being found naked and immobilized was just the beginning of it. He was brought down from his room on a stretcher with only a blanket covering his naked body. Everybody was looking at him. And that was right after that moron, Marcus, ran out of his room and jumped from the fire escape totally naked, too. People would, of course, only arrive at a particular conclusion.

"How is Marcus?" he asked as he gestured for Sam to sit on the couch. He sat opposite him.

"They are still keeping him sedated," answered Sam. "He broke his neck, a few ribs and both his legs. He also has a minor concussion, and he has a lot of bruises all over his body," he sighed.

"But that's the least of his injuries," he continued. "He still screams a lot about a ghost trying to kill him whenever he becomes lucid enough. His parents are having him committed to a mental institution in the next few days."

Oliver sighed. "Lucky bastard," he thought. "Now I'm gonna have to face the humiliation alone."

"What really happened in there, Oliver?" Sam broke his reverie. Oliver just shook his head.

"People are saying that you two were having sex when a poltergeist decided to throw you both around. That's probably the most ridiculous story I've heard, but it's not the only story out there. Some are saying that you tried to rape Marcus and he fought back and escaped, and then tried to commit suicide because of that. I definitely know that's not true because you and Marcus had been fooling around since freshman year. But either way, it doesn't really paint a pretty picture of you. So tell me, what really happened?" probed Sam.

Oliver kept his silence.

"To tell you the truth, I think somebody else was involved in this whole debacle," Sam continued. "It's that Charlie kid, isn't it? You tried to do something to him and it backfired again, didn't it? Look, I'm also mad as hell for losing Rommel because of him, but you just have to let it go, dude. There are lots of other possible recruits out there."

"There's nobody else out there like Charlie," he thought to himself. And I will have him.

"Tell me what's going on, Oliver," Sam pleaded, but he continued to keep his mouth shut, staring blankly at Sam.

Sam sighed again. "Fine, don't tell me," he said. "But the Group doesn't want you anywhere near any of the members until this blows over. The members want to be assured that their reputations would not be tainted by being associated with you."

He looked fiercely at Sam. "So you're just gonna abandon me like this?" he hissed. "After all I did for the Group, I am being relegated to scum just because of this?"

Sam looked back at him. "We wanna help you," he said. "But unless you let us in and tell us what's really going on, we won't be able to do that."

"I don't need your help!" he barked. He sat there fuming. He could see the pity in Sam's eyes. He hated it. "And I don't need your pity," he said.

He tried to calm himself down. He knew he had to keep his cool if he was going to remedy the situation.

"I can fix this," he said afterwards. "I just need to get back to Kalayaan. I will fix this, I swear."

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Sam. "You are still the number one hot topic on the rumor mills."

"It will just get worse if I hide," he countered. "I have to get back there and show them that I have nothing to hide. I just have to tell them my side of the story. I have to get my dignity back."

"It's your call," Sam resigned. "Just fix it." He stood up and walked his way out the door.

Oliver didn't move. He didn't know how long he stayed on the couch wearing just his robe. He couldn't get it out of his mind. He almost had his cock in Charlie's mouth when he suddenly felt being shoved so hard that he literally flew towards the window. He was frozen in fear as he saw Marcus being thrown to the wall, and then he saw Marcus being slowly lifted up by an unseen force.

He had heard about ghost stories in Kalayaan even before he came to UP. But he never believed any of that was true. Until now.

Then his mind wandered back to Charlie. "How many times will you escape my grasp?" he thought. "If I were to get to you, I need to get rid of your protectors first. Danny would be easy to get rid of. But how do you get rid of a ghost?"

It took quite a while before an evil grin began to form on his lips. He stood up and got his phone from his room.

"Hey mom," he said as the line got connected. "Can you drive me to Kalayaan tomorrow. Yeah, I have to go back. I got a lot of things I need to do. Oh, and do you still have the number of that lady you were seeing before? Yeah, the fortune teller. I need her help on something. Great! Thanks!"

He wrote down the number and the grin never left his face.

BY MONDAY, Charlie felt that he was back to normal. The drug had totally worn off and he felt strong again. He wanted to just stay in the room with Danny, but he knew that they both still have classes to attend and to catch up on.

He woke up feeling Danny's warm body next to him. He slowly got up and got ready for a shower. He stole one last glance at the beautiful, sleeping boy on his bed before he went out to the showers.

He took his time feeling the water wash out the soap from his body. Then he dried himself up, wrapped the towel around his waist and headed back to the room.

The door in his room was ajar. He went in and saw that Danny was gone. He gently closed the door but didn't lock it.

He opened his closet and surveyed the heap of clothes for something perfect to wear. He didn't notice that the writings on the wall of his closet had changed color from charcoal black to dark red.

When he finally took the items that he decided to wear, Danny suddenly burst in the room panic-stricken. His face was washed away with relief when he saw Charlie standing there with only a towel covering his body.

He quickly ran towards Charlie and wrapped his arms around him.

"Where the hell have you been?" he whispered in Charlie's ear. "I was worried sick..."

"I uh... I just took a shower," Charlie said.

Danny looked in his eyes and said, "Don't scare me like that again, okay? I'd die if anything bad happens to you."

Charlie saw tears welling up in Danny's eyes. He touched Danny's face and wiped the tear that started to fall.

"Nothing bad will happen to me as long as I know that you got my back," he smiled. Danny smiled back and hugged him tightly again.

Charlie let himself drown in Danny's arms for a while before he whispered to his ear. "Don't you have a class to go to?"

Danny broke away and said, "I uh... I'm not going to class. I'll just hang out here with you."

"Much as I'd enjoy that, I can't let you miss another class," he said seriously. "And I can't miss another class either."

"I'll just sit in with your class then," said Danny smiling sweetly. Charlie gave him a disapproving look.

"It's just that..." Danny started.

"Shut it," Charlie interrupted. "I know you're worried. But I really can take care of myself, you know. They just caught me off-guard and that will never happen again."

"But..."

"And if they ever catch me with my guards down again, I know you'll come and find me," Charlie continued.

"But what if I'm too late?"

"You won't be."

Danny wanted to protest some more, but he knew he wouldn't win. He could never win an argument with Charlie, especially when Charlie looked so fresh and sexy wearing only a towel. He sighed.

"You better get showered," said Charlie after a while.

Danny hesitated, but eventually grabbed his towel and proceeded to the bathroom.

After the door closed, Charlie expected Spook to pop out of thin air. But he didn't feel Spook's presence anywhere.

He hadn't felt Spook since he disappeared in a puff of dark smoke with his eyes bursting in red flames.

He sighed.

"I miss you, Spook," he said under his breath. "I never got the chance to thank you for saving me. I just hope to God you're all right."

He waited for a while to get the familiar feeling when Spook was around. But he couldn't feel it. Just stillness.

He sighed again.

"Where are you, Spook?"

HE HAD BEEN standing on the ledge of the fire escape, but he didn't know for how long. He watched the young man jump over this same ledge. It wasn't so high that the man would die, but he was sure that the man was hurt pretty badly having hurled himself three storeys down.

And he was the one who caused it.

He could still see the young man's naked body sprawled on the grass as the man coughed out blood.

Somehow, he didn't only see one body... he saw several. They were all bloodied.

He looked at his hands and he saw blood. Not his.

Then he saw images of Charlie helplessly lying on the bed. His heart wept and he wanted to lash out again.

Charlie's face then flashed in front of him. Charlie was weeping.

"They told Rosie..." Charlie said to him.

"Who did?" he asked. "What did they tell who?

But Charlie didn't answer him and just faded away.

"I can't do this anymore," said Charlie who appeared right behind him. He turned around to face him. Charlie was crying.

"She threatened to tell everybody," Charlie continued. "She threatened to tell my dad."

"Tell what?" he asked, but Charlie just looked at him with those sad, confused eyes. And then Charlie faded again.

He tried to chase Charlie. But he couldn't find him. Then, he found himself standing in the center of Charlie's room.

Charlie was near the door, facing him, looking at him with pleading eyes.

"Do you love me?" Charlie asked him.

"What?"

"Please tell me you love me," Charlie pleaded.

"I..." he hesitated.

Charlie's eyes welled up with tears. Then it hardened.

"I'm leaving," Charlie said with a determined voice. "Don't come after me. Don't look for me. Forget that I ever existed. Because that's what I'll do. From now on you don't exist to me anymore."

Charlie faded again.

"Don't leave me..." he wailed. "Don't leave..."

But Charlie disappeared completely.

He found himself standing on the ledge of the fire escape again.

"They told her..." He heard Charlie whisper in his ear.

"I can't do this anymore..."

"I'm leaving..."

His head was drowning in a million Charlies crying out the same things over and over. He couldn't help but put his hands on his ears to try to silence the noise.

"Charlie, please..." he moaned.

Then, the noise stopped. Everything was silent again.

He looked around and saw nothing but the places he could never go to. He could never leave that place. He could only look outside, but he was stuck in that building.

He heard a car pull up the parking lot and he saw Oliver getting out. Oliver had a few bruises on his face and he had a cast on his left arm. He saw an older woman giving Oliver a hug and then going back to the car. After the car drove off, Oliver walked to the building without any hint of embarrassment or guilt.

In his eyes, Oliver morphed into five different guys in a span of a few seconds.

"It's your fault," he said. "It's your fault he left me. It all began with you. You took him away from me."

His eyes burst into red flames.

"I won't let you take him away this time."

Black smoke started to emanate from his body.

"I won't let anyone take him away from me ever again!"