Kole - ch. 2 - YAOI WARNING

Chapter Two


"Arms out."

Kole straightened his shoulders and spread his arms, his eyes on the floor to avoid the blinding flash of the polaroid. Ian Wilkes moved around to the front of the camera stand, the burning cigarette clamped between his teeth nearly burned to his lips. His brow was furrowed, the way it had been for the last hour, and he muttered quietly to himself as the camera flashed.

Kole dropped his arms, moving across the room to pick up his shirt that was laid out across the arm of a black chair. Ian dropped his cigarette to an ash tray balancing on the edge of the table, his eyes fixed on the appearing photo in his hand.

Kole sat down tiredly.

It was nearly eleven now, the last of the night buses long gone. He would have asked to leave hours ago but Mr. Wilkes's interest was unexpected. Kole folded his arms and leaned back in the chair. Either way he needed answers to his...problem, and if Ian Wilkes knew what he was doing Kole would have stayed around for days.

Ian worried his bottom lip between his teeth, moving to the doorway of the office and nudging it open. He leaned out and knocked against the wall, the echo carrying downstairs into the sparse waiting room below.

"Aaron! Come up here quick."

The older boy who had first greeted Kole at the door shuffled up the stairs and turned toward the office. Ian offered the polaroid on a flat palm. The tired rings under Aaron's eyes seemed darker than before, his lips pressed into a thin line. Kole watched his face as he scanned the picture, seeing his dark eyes narrow.

Kole swallowed, "What's wrong?"

Aaron set the picture down on the table, "Look."

The photo was the exact image that Kole had come to fear when he looked in the mirror every morning. He stood with his back to the wall, chest and shoulders bare, arms spread tiredly. His eyes were on the floor, his dark hair a mess from countless run-throughs by nervous hands. What really stood out was the reason Ian Wilkes had taken the photo in the first place.

The marks.

They criss-crossed the pale skin of his chest like bruises, only thin, narrow, concentrated, perhaps more like old scars than anything. They stretched from the edge of his collar bone to the bottom of his ribs, the dark impressions rimmed with red, making the skin seem irritated.

Kole dropped a hand to his now-clad chest and ran his fingers over the marks that he'd come to memorize from countless nights of staring. He winced and pulled back, forgetting how much they hurt when touched.

The seat of the chair shifted, giving under Aaron's weight as the older boy sat down beside him, leaning over his shoulder and lifting a finger to the picture. Kole tilted the photo so he could see it better, suppressing a yawn as Aaron pointed to something in the corner of the photo.

"Look closer...see that?"

Kole squinted.

"The camera flare?"

"It's an orb," Aaron took the picture from Kole's hand and stood, returning the photo to Ian's hand. The pale-haired man tucked the photo in the front pocket of his shirt, sliding another cigarette out in the same motion and seeing the confused look in Kole's eyes.

"An orb," Ian flicked the lid of his silver lighter open, a flame sparking to life and hovering there, "is a manifestation of a spirit...or something else. They show up in photographs, or videos, sometimes to the naked eye. It means your being followed, kid."

Kole glanced up, his heart skipping a beat, "...by what?"

Ian shrugged, glancing down at a file Aaron had slipped into his hands.

"Usually orbs don't mean much. A spirit will latch onto anything that strikes its fancy. But these," he took out the photograph and tucked it into the file, "...these marks on your chest? This isn't the work of any useless wisp that I've ever known. Something big is following you, and it's following you closely. I'm thinking, these marks, are a way of identification. Like a brand."

He dropped the file on the table, "When something like this happens, when a person is marked by something not human, it draws other entities to them. Like moths to a neon light. And by the number of orbs in this picture, I'd say whatever has gone and marked you up...isn't exactly Casper the friendly ghost, you get?"

He leaned against the side of his desk with a sigh.

"Go over this one more time with me."

Kole winced, lifting a hand to run it through his hair and catching himself at the last moment. Frustrated he stood, pacing over to where Aaron was rifling through filing cabinets.

"They showed up about two weeks ago. I had fallen in gym class the day before so I figured I'd just gotten scraped up a little. But...every night they got darker, and more and more of them started showing up. It wasn't until Wednesday that they started to hurt."

Aaron closed a drawer hard, "You didn't go to a hospital?"

Kole balked, "I...hospitals are expensive. Besides, they just showed up out of nowhere. And I keep getting this feeling, like it's getting cold only inside me. And...this face...I keep seeing this face whenever I pass windows, mirrors, puddles...anything."

Ian glanced up sharply, "What kind of face?"

Kole shrugged, "A man's face. An old man. With black teeth."

Ian bowed his head against his chest and stayed silent for a very long time, his pale hair falling strand by strand over his neck and across his face. Finally he rightened himself, closing his eyes and tilting his head back until he faced the ceiling.

"...Alright. Kole, Aaron will pick you up tomorrow after school. Until then I'll give you his number, if you see anything or if the marks get worse...call him. I'm going to send that photo to some friends and see what they think. Until then," he turned his eyes on Kole, his sharp stare almost seeming to soften for a moment, "...be careful."

* * *

"Hey, Aaron?"

The older boy paused, his hand on the knob of the front door, glancing back over his shoulder to where Kole stood on the bottom stair. Kole thumped to the landing, giving him a hesitant smile, "Are you going passed Center Street? All...all the buses stopped running hours ago."

Aaron gave him a long look.

"I'm not passing by there...but I can give you a lift."

The only car left outside the wayward building was the deep red one. Kole slid into the front seat and laid his bag across his knees, watching as Aaron circled around the car and popped open the driver's door. The car hardly made a noise at all, only humming to life.

They drove in silence.

Kole twisted the edge of his shirt between his fingers.

"How long have you been working for Mr. Wilkes?"

Aaron glanced over at him, almost seeming surprised at the offered conversation. He shifted and raised a hand to rub at his neck, "Not long. It was just a summer job. I came down from New York last year and, just...never got around to leaving. After what happened to Ian's wife I felt like I needed to stick around a while longer."

Kole dropped his eyes, "What...happened to Ian's wife?"

The car turned a slow corner.

"She fell," Aaron said simply, "they have her over at Saint Lucinda's Hospital, but all the doctor's say she'll never wake up again. Ian just won't let go."

"Oh," Kole said quietly.

He leaned his head against the window, missing the side-long glance Aaron fed steadily in his direction. The quiet car stopped smoothly across the front driveway of Morris Preparatory Academy, idling under the boiling clouds.

Kole popped open the door and swung his legs out.

"Kole?"

The younger boy glanced back over his shoulder, "Yeah?"

Aaron's face nearly melted into the shadows, his dark eyes barely visible in the black. His grip on the steering wheel tightened, "This...thing. Whatever's after you. You didn't...do anything, did you? You didn't piss it off or anything, right?"

Kole blinked, "I was raised in a religious family, three weeks ago I didn't even believe in ghosts. Whatever this thing is...there's no reason for it to be after me."

Aaron's shoulders relaxed and he nodded.

"Good. Okay...I'll pick you up tomorrow."

Kole stepped out of the car, slamming the door closed and watching the car pull away and disappear into the night. With every yard put between them, Kole felt his stomach sink a little further. He lifted a hand to his chest, breathing hard.

You didn't piss it off or anything...right?

He squeezed his eyes shut until bright lights burst in the darkness.