Page 22 of Burn For Me

“Why don’t I get in, and then I can help you?”

“You don’t have to do that, my boy. I’m good. Just getting a little forgetful in my old age. It will come back to me. I just need a minute,” she said, but her body language told me she was really terrified and who could blame her. To leave your home for five minutes and not remember how to get back had to be scary. When I was a kid, there were times I wished I could’ve forgotten which way was home, but I couldn’t leave my brother. Then again, maybe I would’ve been better off if I had.

“It’s no problem, Dora. If it makes you feel better, I can eat this with you. The fridge is not working. It’s on my list of items to fix, so there’s no good way to store this, and I don’t want it to go to waste. I can always come back and eat more if you insist.” I smiled wide and had no idea why I was being so nice to her, but it felt right, so I was going with it.

She waggled her finger at me. “You’re not planning on taking advantage of an old woman, now are you? I don’t think I could bend the way you young fellas like to during hanky panky.”

I laughed, and then I laughed harder. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks. “No hanky panky, I promise.”

“Alright, then come on and get in. I can’t remember if I ate, but I’m hungry. Not like I can’t put on a pound or two.” She patted her stomach, which looked like she’d missed more than one meal despite her claims of cooking so much. I walked around the front of her car and hopped in.

“I think you said you lived that way.” I pointed the way she had earlier.

Grinning wide, she pulled the car out onto the road, and then I wondered if I should’ve gotten in a vehicle with someone that couldn’t remember where they lived. I shrugged. Well, I was in the car now. Couldn’t be any more dangerous than the asylum had been.

Drip.

I shook my head.

Drip.

I wiped at my face and opened my eyes to stare up into the black eyes of a creature, its saliva dripping on my forehead. I froze with the thing mere inches from my own face as I tried to make sense of what looked too solid to be a ghost yet couldn’t be living either.

Its face had a distinctly human shape but had been distorted by lopsided eyes and a mouth. It looked like it was melting on one side. Wide-open holes were the only thing left where a nose once used to be, and it whistled with every breath. Rags of white hung off the boney body that was as twisted with the joints pointing in the wrong direction.

I swallowed loudly as more liquid dripped from the gaping jowl that held an unusual amount of teeth.

“They want to be consumed,” it said, its voice coming out like a wheeze. A low rumble that seemed more like a growl rippled out from trembling lips. When it reared back and opened its mouth wide like it was going to attack, I put my arms over my face, but only a hot flash flowed over my skin.

Looking over my arms, I saw that the living room was on fire, the bright flames weaving back and forth like they were moving in time to a drum that only they could hear. I jumped up and looked down at the fire on the floor, but it didn’t burn me.

“What the hell is going on?”

The sound of laughter sent a shiver up my spine, but even as dread settled in my chest, another sensation emerged from the darkness that lived in my mind. I could see the people from the asylum in the flames. Their screams rang in my ears as they ran down the hallway, their faces like wax figurines. Taking a deep breath, I allowed the scene to fill me with its sensations. The pleasure coursing through my body as steady as the blood in my veins. I reached down and grabbed my cock and yelled as it jerked in my hand.

Like a light being switched off, all went dark, and the image that had been playing out like a movie for my own personal viewing pleasure was gone.

“No, don’t go.”

I rushed over to the wall and ran my hands all over it, but it was cold to the touch. My hands clenched into fists, and I began banging them off the peeling blue wallpaper covering the cold plaster.

Laughter filled the room. As I turned my head, I realized there was a light on in the kitchen. Peering into the adjoining hallway, I sucked in a sharp breath as a much younger version of myself and my brother came running down the stairs, laughing as we chased one another.

“Hey, you two, no running in the house,” Mrs. Giltbert’s voice called out from the kitchen. I followed the younger version of myself, and warmth spread throughout my chest as I watched the dinner preparations that were now underway. “Don’t eat too much too fast. It will give you a stomachache.”

“Oh, let them be boys, sweetie. They’re growing and need to eat. Don’t listen to her. You eat all you want,” Mr. Giltbert said and gave us a wink from the head of the table. I smiled at the sight of those faded blue overalls that he always wore.

“Ash,” I whispered at the sight of my brother’s smiling face, his hair a mop of sandy blond exactly like I remembered. Ash looked up and smiled before holding out his hand and beckoning me over as if he could hear me. I took a few small steps toward the table, and the image wavered and then spun around the room.

“No, stop, don’t go,” I cried out as the figures began to fade. I leaped for the image of my brother, but my arms wrapped around nothing. Collapsing to my knees in the middle of the kitchen, clutching nothing to my chest, the tears poured down my cheeks like they had when they dragged me away from Ash to lock me up.

I could clearly remember how his face was twisted in agony as he yelled he was sorry and fought the unknown woman holding him back from running to me. Even as my hands were pulled behind my back, I watched Ash disappear into a tiny speck from the back window of the police car. The sound of his yelling still echoed in my mind.

“What are you doing?”

My head jerked up with the sweet sound of Adalyn’s voice.

“I’m…” I looked around and jumped to my feet. “How are you here?” I smiled wide and pulled her into a hug, sighing as her arms wrapped around my waist.