Spook

Chapter 7
Necrophobia

DANNY woke up panting and disoriented. His heart was hammering in his chest and his mouth and throat were screaming for water. His whole body was covered in sweat and he felt like he just ran a marathon.

He realized that he was in his room and that everything was just a dream. But the dream was so vivid that it felt so real. Or maybe it was.

Flashes of his nightmare came rushing back in his mind. Dead corpses in coffins opening their eyes and grabbing his arms when he approached to look at them. Ghosts surrounding his bed, talking all at once... hovering over him as he slept on his bed... lying beside him... their faces a few inches in front of his. Dead people looking at him everywhere he went... chasing him... hurting him.

He shivered at the thought. He knew it wasn't just a nightmare. Most of the scenes were real memories... memories that he tried to block since his childhood. He instinctively reached for the ring on his thumb and absent-mindedly rotated it.

He was told that he was sensitive to supernatural phenomena. That he had a very powerful sixth sense. Since he was little, he could already see things, people, that other people couldn't see.

At first, they didn't seem to notice him. But when those things realized that he could see them, they began to hound him. They followed him everywhere. They began to bother him.

When he told his parents about it, they just told him that it was just his imagination, that his mind was just playing tricks on him, and he just needed to ignore them. So he did. He tried to.

But the more he ignored them, the more they tried harder to make him notice them. Then, they started to get violent.

They'd throw his things around in his room and they'd chase him everywhere. They would sometimes hold him down and scratch his skin. No amount of pleading could make them stop.

His parents thought he was just hurting himself and sent him to a shrink. Angela believed him and brought him to a local witchdoctor in Davao. The witchdoctor made them all go away. And they stopped chasing after him.

But it didn't stop the nightmares. And it had been more than 10 years.

His fear of dead people had become so severe that he didn't even come to his grandfather's funeral when the man died a couple of years ago. He was afraid that if he looked into the coffin, his grandfather would open his eyes and attack him. His grandfather never liked him when the man was still alive; he was sure his grandfather would have no problem torturing him now that the man was dead.

He sat up and reached for the mini-fridge beside his bed. He got a bottle of water and hungrily drank it down. He looked at Charlie sleeping peacefully on the other side of the room. And he felt himself calm down.

He couldn't exactly explain it, but something about Charlie always seemed to calm him down. Just one smile from his roommate could take all his worries away. Even Charlie's mere presence could make him feel like he was totally protected; like nothing bad could happen to him. He noted that when he was sleeping beside Charlie, he never had these nightmares.

But that was over a month ago.

Ever since his sister saw them snuggling in his bedroom, he didn't have the nerve to ask Charlie if he could sleep beside him again. Even when he was totally freaked out. Even when he was having horrible nightmares like the one he just had.

Charlie didn't seem to mind sleeping on the same bed with him. He even felt that his roommate was a little hurt when he decided to sleep on his own bed after they got back from Angela's that fateful weekend. But he couldn't risk jeopardizing what he had with Charlie. He couldn't risk losing Charlie as a friend. He couldn't risk having Charlie think that he was too weird to be friends with him. He couldn't fathom not having Charlie in his life.

He couldn't understand it, but in the short time that he knew Charlie, the boy had become a very important part of his life. He just knew that being close to Charlie meant the world to him.

Charlie never gave him a hard time about his fear of ghosts and other supernatural beings. He never made him feel that he was weird or anything. He accepted him for who he was and he had always shown genuine concern towards him.

Danny knew that Charlie had made contact with the ghost a while back. He told him that they were calling him Spook from then on. He was hesitant to give the ghost a name, but Charlie said it was cool because it was the ghost who gave himself a name.

He was impressed by the way Charlie was handling this ghost business. If it were him, he would've come running back to the witchdoctor who helped him sort out his ghost problems years ago.

But Charlie was just totally cool with it. He was treating the ghost as if it were just another guy. Danny was even a little jealous of the time that Charlie was devoting to solving Spook's mystery.

Charlie had taken pictures of the writings on his closet and uploaded the digital images on his computer. He also printed out a some copies and spent a couple of hours each day just looking at it. Charlie told him that he was trying to crack it; that it was coded or something.

Charlie was careful enough not to leave any copies lying around the room when he was not around. Danny was sure that Charlie didn't want to freak him out in case he saw it in plain sight, which made him like the boy even more.

He knew that Charlie was on a mission and he understood it. He offered to help but Charlie wouldn't hear of it.

"Look," Charlie told him, "I really appreciate you wanting to help out. But there could be some freaky nasty business that went on in this room that I don't really think you'd want to know about. I'd rather you stay out of this ghost business and stay with me in this room than find out everything that had happened here, totally freak out and just bail on me. I'd like to keep your ugly face around longer, if you don't mind. So just leave this Spook mystery to me."

He just smiled at Charlie and felt overwhelmed by Charlie's desire to protect him from the things that he was afraid of.

He looked at Charlie's face as the boy was peacefully sleeping on his side facing him. Thick, arched eyebrows that could've looked intimidating if it weren't for his innocent, perfectly shaped eyes. Cute button nose. Full, red, supple lips that curls into the sweetest smile he had ever seen. Rosy white cheeks that seem to have a permanent blush.

The boy was beautiful. And what made him even more perfect was the fact that he didn't seem to realize just how beautiful he really was. Charlie could get girls to wet their panties with just a smile. But he seemed totally oblivious that he had that effect on women.

His attention was eventually taken away by Charlie's beautifully chiseled, smooth chest that was heaving up and down in a wonderful rhythm. It was crowned with two small pinkish nipples that were so wonderful to look at. Charlie's stomach was perfectly shaped as well; not too muscular, but smooth and flat, with a distinctive V-shape that led down to his cock.

Danny gulped as he looked at Charlie's perfect runner's ass and legs. Every single part of the boy's body was just simply beautiful.

However, Danny thought that the best thing about Charlie was how smart he really was. Charlie seemed to have an IQ bordering on the genius level. He could look at a complicated math problem and solve it without breaking a sweat. He loved solving complex puzzles that would make other people cringe. And he loved discovering and learning new things. But he didn't care about grades or exams or any arbitrary measurements of knowledge that the professors and university officials cooked up.

Charlie told him that knowledge and wisdom are two very different things, and it was wisdom that he was yearning more than knowledge.

Danny had never met anyone besides Charlie who could enjoy having intelligent, philosophical discussions with him. He felt that he could talk to Charlie about anything and everything. Even the most mundane what's-the-latest-book-you've-read question could turn into a very interesting discussion.

Charlie just seemed to have everything he ever wanted in a girl. Except for the fact that he was a guy. A fact that bothered Danny a lot.

Danny never had a doubt about his sexuality before. He had never been attracted to any guy he knew. But Charlie was different. He longed to be with him. He needed to be close to him.

It bothered him so much that he was crushing on his roommate. And he knew he had to stop it before he hurt a lot of people... especially Abby. But he couldn't help wanting to be close to Charlie. He simply made him feel good. He made him feel so much happier than anyone has ever had... including Abby.

When he finally called Abby a couple of weeks ago, they agreed to go out the following weekend and went to a movie. He told her all about Charlie throughout dinner. He couldn't help it. Whenever he wasn't with Charlie, all he could do was talk about him.

Abby got so interested that she urged him to set up Charlie with her roommate. He didn't like the idea, but he couldn't give Abby a reasonable explanation. Least of all, the truth. He just told her that Charlie probably had plans until the end of the month. But she made him promise that he'd ask.

Reluctantly, he did. And he was so disappointed when Charlie said yes and told him to schedule a foursome date that night.

Charlie was so charming that both Abby and her roommate were literally drooling all over him.

He was so jealous.

Abby had to hug him as if to reassure him that he had no reason to be jealous of Charlie with her. He couldn't tell her that he was jealous of Abby and her roommate because of all the attention Charlie was giving them. Except for a few glances and smiles, Charlie totally ignored him, which really tore him apart.

He was in a sour mood throughout the date. And it became more apparent as they drove back to the dorm after they dropped the girls off.

Charlie sighed after a long silence and said, "I wasn't coming on to your girlfriend, if that's what you're thinking."

He didn't answer. He just kept on driving. He could feel that Charlie was becoming more and more pissed but opted not to say anything anymore.

After he parked the car, Charlie just got out without a word and walked to the dorm without waiting for him.

"Fuck!" he cursed under his breath and decided to pound the throw pillow in the backseat of the car. He got out of the car after he calmed down a bit and walked to the dorm.

When he opened the door to their room, Charlie was standing in the middle of the room facing him with arms across his chest and looking really pissed. He sighed and avoided his gaze.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's not what you think, okay? I'm really just having an off night."

Charlie arched his brow and looked like he was about to say something but decided against it. He walked past Danny to his closet and began to strip off his clothes. He grabbed his towel and walked out of the room to take a shower.

Danny was left in the room feeling like a total jerk. He changed clothes, decided to skip the shower and went straight to bed. He lay on his side facing the wall, closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep.

He heard Charlie coming into the room after a while and felt that he stopped right before his bed staring at him. After a while, Charlie turned on Danny's study lamp, turned off the bright lights on the ceiling of the room and slipped into his bed.

Danny felt a tear running down his cheeks. His confused mind kept him awake for the longest time. He sobbed silently as he slowly fell into a restless sleep.

Then, the nightmares woke him up.

He felt his eyes welling up with tears again. He didn't know how to deal with the feelings he was having for his roommate... the caring, beautiful boy sleeping on the other bed... the wonderful friend who had kept the nightmares and all his worries away... the only person in the whole world who could make him feel so happy by just being near him.

He tried to breathe deeply in an attempt to control the tears from falling down. But he just couldn't stop them. He longed to hold Charlie. He wanted to feel Charlie's arms around him again. He needed to feel Charlie's warm body close to him.

He began to whimper. He tried not to make too much noise. He didn't want to wake Charlie up. He didn't want to worry him. He didn't want Charlie to see him this way.

He took a pillow and buried his face in it as he let out muffled cries of the pain and confusion he was feeling.

"Danny?" Charlie said.

The beautiful voice just made him weep even more. It pained him just to hear his concerned voice. He tried to ignore him.

He heard the creaks of Charlie's bed as the boy got up and began to walk towards him. Charlie took the pillow he was holding and looked him in the eye. Then, Charlie put the pillow right next to his on the other bed.

Charlie took Danny's hand and led him to his bed, all the while looking intently at him. Charlie lay down on his bed and pulled Danny next to him.

Danny lay his head on Charlie's shoulder and Charlie wrapped both his arms around Danny. Danny felt Charlie's lips brush against his forehead, which sent a warm, fuzzy feeling through every cell in his body.

Danny finally stopped sobbing and he felt peaceful... calm... protected. All the worries and confusion seemed to go away in an instant. Everything seemed to make sense. Everything was good again.

In Charlie's arms, he was finally able to fall into deep sleep.

And the dream he had was wonderful.