That's What Neighbours Are For...

[egghead]

When the boy finally stopped fighting against the inescapable and became still, Leslie let him drop to the floor and relished the sound of the thud of his head hitting the tile before bending down to lift him up by the legs.

Dragging his unconscious body towards the kitchen, he dumped him carelessly onto one of the chairs then used the rag to tie his wrists together. While he was perfecting the complicated knot, a voice snuck up from behind and yanked him out of his own little world.

"What are you doing...?"

He spun around to see Glen sitting upright on the couch, eyes wide and unwavering, gawking at him as if he were doing something wrong.

"Glen..." It wounded and confused him deeply to be given that sort of look. Moving a step closer, he was taken aback when the other man yelled.

"S-stay away from me!"

"There's nothing in our way anymore..." his legs, with a mind of their own, carried him back into the living room anyway. "We can finally be together."

Falling onto his knees in front of the futon, Leslie reached out and forced the shaking hands of his obsession into his own. After thinking that he memorized every single expression this face could make, a new one was staring back at him. It was something he didn't understand, and probably couldn't, but it bothered him all the same.

"I love you, Glen." He said it with such conviction that he himself believed it. "You know that, don't you? I love you so much...we were meant to be, ever since that night."

There was a heavy, deadly silence that covered the room like a thick wool blanket.

"We can have a family..." he pressed on, sounding more desperate by the minute. "I want a family with you. To be the mother I never had...I won't let anything happen to our children. Not like..." his voice trailed off when it became clear to him that the only person he thought understood him, had no idea what he was talking about.

His grip on his hands tightened, like he never wanted to let go.

"You remember me, don't you...? Leslie?"

When the other man didn't reply, he could almost hear his heart shattering in his chest. "Then I guess we'll have to start over..." his voice rumbled low and angry right before he suddenly jerked forward and crushed his lips against Glen's in the most horrifying kiss imaginable.

 

[Atom]

While being out for a while, Declan could subtly feel what Leslie was doing but couldn't pinpoint exactly what. It was a good thing he decided to 'play dead' before the cloth was held to his face any longer. In all honesty, he was amazed that he even thought of something smart enough.

Even though it wasn't enough to keep him asleep, Declan was still confused and groggy, the light of the kitchen hurting his barely open eyes. His head hurt and everything sounded muffled. In and out of consciousness, he closed his eyes almost ready to fall asleep but saw an image only his eyes would remember. His dad. And it scared him into somewhat of an awareness.

"Uncle!!?" The words were the first thing he called out, hands moving against the tight knot around his hands.

 

[egghead]

He didn't know what to do when Leslie kissed him. He was a statue. He felt nothing. But Leslie held him down anyway, one of his hands creeping up to cradle his face in a screwed up parody of affection.

"You taste exactly like I imagined you would, Glen..." Leslie's tone had become smoother, disturbingly flirty, contrasting with the steel grip he had on his jaw. Blood rushed into his ears and his heart pounded, begging for a heart attack, anything to get away from this freak.

He gulped and licked his dry lips, then immediately regretted it when he saw the mouth that violated him twist into a smirk. Panic set in and a rush of heat flared across his skin as Leslie's face lowered, fingers moving from his burning cheeks to the back of his scalp where they grabbed a fistful of hair. A harsh tug forced his head back, and he gasped in pain but also horror when he felt Leslie's hot tongue drag across his neck.

"Wh-what are you...ー" Glen wheezed, all of the air in his lungs escaping in one puff of ash. The other man chuckled darkly, laugh rumbling against his collarbone, savouring his response.

"Found your weak spot..." Leslie hummed in a growl he felt more than heard. "I know how lonely you are, Glen. You want someone to fill you up, to make you whole."

The words mortified and alarmed him, and it only got worse when he heard his nephew call out for him. "Declan..." he panted out, voice barely there and shaky. "Declan, did he hurt you?!"

Praying that he couldn't see them from the chair he was strapped to in the kitchen, Glen also damned himself for being so weak, but then again their neighbour was unusually strong for someone so average-sized.

 

[Atom]

He was surprised to hear Glen's response, but it didn't sound good, igniting panic in him. For a while now he had been trying to get the knot off his wrist but gave up and stood up as best he could with his hands behind his back. The effects of whatever Leslie had used on him were starting to wear off with how hard he fought it.

Slowly and quietly he stole a glance around the corner toward the living room. What he saw both horrified him and confused him but one thing was for sure, this wasn't what Glen wanted to happen. While the panic got worse, he kept as quiet as could be, hoping his uncle wouldn't make a noise over him approaching Leslie from behind.

Declan raised a leg and kicked their neighbor off of him with a harder hit than he did earlier.

"What the hell are you doing?!" He almost screamed it, gaze flying back and forth between Glen and the weirdo.

 

[egghead]

The old man tried to scramble to his feet once the heavier body was booted off of him, but ended up slipping off of the couch and falling hard onto the carpet. He almost broke his neck looking up at Leslie's recovering form, and felt nothing but fear when he witnessed the unadulterated fury messing up his pretty face.

"You just don't know when to quit..." he seethed finally, his voice not coming from just his mouth. It came from the walls, the floors, the ceiling. It came from the entire apartment. "Do you, kid?"

Glen screamed when their neighbour rushed forward at his nephew and wrapped his dirty, bloodthirsty hands around the throat that he helped dress up earlier that day. "No!"

 

[Atom]

"I don't."

Leslie had the grip of a madman alright, it felt like it could snap his neck any second. Declan grit his teeth and stared into his attackers eyes with an entire fire of anger in his own. He took a few steps back while the restricted flow of oxygen began to make his body go into a panic.

A few words seeped out between the silent gasps for any amount of air.

"I...think you're the...lonely one here..."

 

[egghead]

"I'll..."

The words struck a nerve more intensely than Declan probably anticipated. As his hatred burned into the boy's youthful face, Leslie could almost see his own younger self in the eyes shared by the man he thought he loved so much, except...this boy was much stronger than he ever was. It made him tighten his grip, enough to squeeze the remaining life out of him. "I'll kill you."

But he didn't get the chance to.

The sharp crack of metal against his target's skull was sickening, and the vibration that came from the impact sapped the strength from Glen's noodle arms. As his victim fell, so did the baseball bat he was holding. It slipped from his shaking hands and onto the floor where it clattered loudly, the sound ringing in his blood-filled ears.

He couldn't believe what he had done, but at the same time it didn't feel like he did anything wrong.

 

[Atom]

Declan heaved heavy breaths, falling to the ground where he caught up with everything that just happened. His tired eyes looked upward to his uncle who now seemed mortified and that was the very last thing he wanted. After several gasps of air, the cloth became loose, his thin wrists slipping out. It didn't take him long to reach for the bat on the ground, getting a feel for it in his hands. It was just right.

The cold metal of the bat rested on one of Leslie's cheeks, pushing into it quite violently. "You don't earn the right to act like this through bad memories." Both eyes, wide and visible stared at the body on the ground, not caring whether he could hear the words or not.

"Someone like me should know." The conversation he overheard earlier broke multiple nerves deep within him, yet another one snapped and his hands reached for the closest thing. It happened to be an old ceramic lamp. Declan smashed the base over Leslie's head then stepped back after realizing what he was doing.

 

[egghead]

As soon as Declan stumbled back, his uncle was there to wrap his arms around him in a tight embrace. "I'm sorry, Declan..." he sobbed, guilty knowing that it was his fault for letting the Boogieman into their home. "I-I didn't know, I..."

His breath hitching more with every gasp he made, Glen looked down at their neighbour's lifeless body and felt part of him actually hope that he was dead. He chewed on his bottom lip and turned away, fat tears still rolling down his prickly cheeks.

Though he was begged to earlier, he just couldn't remember meeting anyone named "Leslie" before in his entire life.

 

[Atom]

Still, his hands were holding onto the baseball bat when he felt the shaking arms of his uncle wrap around his hate filled frame. Unsure of what to say, he kept an eye on the body below for any more movement but soon, Declan gave in and dropped the weapon, turning around to bury his face into Glens upper chest.

"I don't want anything to happen to you." A tremble found its way into his body, but tears unable to find a way to his dark eyes, only shock. "You can't ever leave me alone, I don't know what I'd...." His words slowly fell silent, hands cautiously gripping onto the back of Glen's shirt.

 

[egghead]

"I-I know, I know..." he comforted, trying his best to speak clearly even though his words were wobbly at the edges. "I won't leave."

He sighed, breathing slowly returning to normal, and patted the back of his nephew's head gently. The events of that night played back to him in his mind, grainy and blurry like an old black-and-white horror movie. Should they call an ambulance? The police?

"Come..." he reluctantly pulled away to get a head start. "H-help me find the phone."

 

[Atom]

Slightly less troubled after hearing his uncles words, he also pulled away. "I think my cellphone is somewhere on the kitchen floor, we can use that.." He followed Glen, stepping around the unconscious body on the ground.

It was sad to Declan how much Leslie just wanted a proper life, he wished he could somehow give it to him but after everything that happened here tonight, he was sure he wasn't the one to do so.

"Here it is." Once in the kitchen, he picked it up and began to dial a number but the noise of their apartment door chain jingled.

"Did you hear that?" Declan took a few steps back just in case.

 

[egghead]

Glen's blood froze in his veins. He went still for a moment, enjoying his last few moments of relief before a terrible feeling churned in his guts and told him that there wouldn't be a happy ending to this chapter in their life.

Rocketing back towards the living room, his feet stopped dead in their tracks, toes just barely reaching the carpet.

"No..." he heard himself whisper, eyes wide and scanning for a ghost that either spilled into the cracks in the floor or was never there to begin with.

This wasn't happening, couldn't be...

Leslie was gone.