Throw-away Account

Preview of Five To Six-


Chapter 1

The shadowy figure held him down, mouth gaping wide, emitting the awful sound. Zechariah twisted, screaming silently and found himself in a tangle of bed sheets on the floor. He struggled to relieve himself from the folds, blinking rapidly and squinting in the sunlight streaming through his bedroom window.

Beep! Beep!

His alarm clock was going off. Zechariah lifted himself up shakily, in a cold sweat, and slapped his palm against the off switch. Then he collapsed back on the wooden floor of his bedroom and leaned his head heavily against the mattress. He shut his eyes and took a few moments to gather his wits. The bad dreams plagued him nightly and he pleaded with his own brain to stop torturing him.

“He better be getting’ dressed! If he misses the bus, you’re takin’ ‘im!” his mother yelled from the other side of the tiny house.

“The hell I am!” his father yelled in a booming voice just outside of his door. “Wake up!” he bellowed at the locked door.

“I’m up!” Zechariah called back so his father would leave him to get ready in peace.

Zechariah listened to his father’s heavy feet stomp back through the house. Then he got up and flitted nimbly to the bathroom down the hall with a towel in hand to take a shower.

He turned on the portable radio to drown out his parent’s constant arguing and shed his sleeping clothes. He rubbed an absent hand across a bruise on his left butt cheek, evidence still from last week’s dismal fight with his father. Zechariah stayed as far away from John as much as he could manage so those heavy boots couldn’t make contact when he did something, anything, to annoy the drunk bastard. But he had been too close the last time when John told him to try out for a sports team and Zechariah refused, turning his back to walk away. He ended up receiving a painful steel-toed kick, enough to send him sprawling across the carpet of the living room, for his objection.

Be a man.

“Be a man,” Zechariah whispered to himself as he stood, naked and bruised, beneath the trickle of lukewarm water. He hugged his arms to his chest and felt a sob burn in his throat.

***

He poked his head out of the bathroom door to make sure the coast was clear before he scampered quickly back to his bedroom. As he pulled a sweater over his t-shirt to protect himself from the mild Louisiana cold snap, he caught sight of the strap to his ‘emergency’ book bag sneaking out from under his bed. He contemplated the significance of it longingly. He bought the book bag in anticipation of going to a university, but since those plans had fallen by the wayside, he had another use for it in mind.

He squinted his eyes shut, willing himself to complete the day in one piece even though his fingers itched to snatch the bag from under his bed and haul ass away from this place, this suffocating Louisiana town and his alcoholic parents.

Just one more month and I can go. One more month… a few more dollars snatched from John’s wallet and I can disappear forever.

The phone rang on his bedside table. He lunged for it, recognizing the number, so neither of his parents could answer it first.

“What?” he asked in cold urgency.

“How’s it going, baby?” the tinny voice replied.

“I told you not to call my house. It’s over.”

“You never even invited me to meet your parents-“

Zechariah furrowed his brow, bit his lip and slammed the phone on the receiver.

Reluctantly, he stuffed his secret desire under the bed and darted past his parents, embroiled now in fits of useless and meaningless rage in the kitchen, to wait nervously at the bus stop as he had for thirteen years. He thought he’d be used to it by now but was dismayed quite regularly by the knot in his stomach as the yellow school bus approached.

Silent condemnation from elder members of the high school Baptist Youth club stabbed at him and snickers of badly made jokes reached his ears as he took his customary seat in the front.

“I bet he drinks piss,” one of the boys hissed to another girl, who fell into a fit of hushed giggles.

Zechariah felt rage boil inside of him but his embarrassment got the best of him and he sank down in the seat so he could look out of the window and pretend he was somewhere else… anywhere else.

***

A few days later Zechariah sat uncomfortably in the Principal's office. He fidgeted on the hard wooden chair and looked around at the brightly colored posters decorated on the walls.

ROAR With Pride- Go TIGERS!

Zechariah thought absently that the tiger claws would look more realistic with a bit of blood splattered across the poster. He shivered involuntarily. He studied the other poster behind Mrs. Lacy's desk.

I am not only your Principal. I am your Princi-PAL.

He felt his insides begin to shake with anticipation. What was taking Mrs. Lacy so long? He wanted his diploma so he could leave this school forever. Zechariah never planned on stepping another foot on the campus lawn.

It wasn't that he hated his public school. He had decent teachers. The building was always kept clean and bright. The purple and gold trimmed hallways were inviting and filled with school spirit. It was the students he wanted to get away from. The memories of their taunting, the sneers and laughter had spurred him into taking on more classes than his peers so he could graduate a semester early.

"Here you go," Mrs. Lacy said as she walked briskly into her office. "Your diploma is in this folder and the records of your classes are in this one, as you requested."

Zechariah flipped open the folder and studied his name written in shiny gold letters under Mrs. Lacy's polite smile.

"I hope you will reconsider your decision. We wish for everyone to walk down the aisle to receive their diploma with the other students," she said.

Zechariah shrugged.

"I will think about it," he answered. He then cowered under Mrs. Lacy's steely grey eyes. Her lips thinned and she looked very much like she wanted to pop him on the back of the head. He had seen her do that before to other students. Maybe she had gotten away with it because the other students were slightly terrified of her, he thought.

"Good luck," she said and the bright smile was plastered on her face again.

Zechariah ran out of the office into the parking lot. His dad was waiting in the truck for him and he was tapping his fingers in anger.

Zechariah realized immediately he had upset his father by the look he received as he approached the vehicle in the student parking lot.

"Get in the fucking truck," his dad barked when he opened the door. He scrambled up into the cab and slammed the door shut.

"What took so goddamn long?" he demanded, spittle flecking across the dash from rage.

Zechariah pulled the diploma close to his chest as they sped out of the parking lot.

"It wasn't my fault. Mrs. Lacy made me wait in her--"

"I don't give a flying fuck about that stupid bitch. Don't ever make me wait like that again," his dad grumbled. He took a gulp from his beer can and gunned the engine into the local gas station. The truck lurched to a screeching stop at the front of the building and his dad returned with three cases of beer under his arms.

Zechariah wished his dad would get black out drunk tonight. His nights were much more peaceful when his dad was passed out in the living room in front of the television. I hope so, he thought wistfully when he and his dad made it home.
--------------------------------------------

"Zeke!" his mother slurred and handed the phone out to him. Zechariah ran to the kitchen with a pounding heart.

NO!
His father wobbled into the kitchen in a drunken haze and snatched the phone from his mother.

"Who is this! You the guy who's been prank calling my house, huh boy?!" he shouted. Zechariah reached for the phone and his father's eyes bugged out in anger. He swatted Zechariah away as he listened to the caller's words.

"You got the wrong number, faggot," he said and slammed the phone back in the cradle.

Zechariah froze in terror. His father slowly turned around and glared at him, red faced and wide-eyed.

"Ex-boyfriend... Said he is your boyfriend? I knew you were a cocksucker! You fucking fairy shit bag!" he screamed and the veins in his father's head protruded and thumped wildly against the skin. He lunged for Zechariah and a fist collided with Zechariah's belly.

Zechariah grasped wildly for the refrigerator door and collapsed in a heap on the floor as his mother screamed.

---------------------------------------------
Zechariah frantically shoved as many clothes into his back pack as he could. His father pounded furiously on the door. The thin wood and rusty lock barely held back the muffled screams of rage and violent kicking.

"I will kill you, you fucking faggot! This is my house and you foul it up with your rotten little AIDS infested abominations! SHUT UP, MOLLY, I SWEAR TO GOD HE'S DEAD!"

He could hear his mother trying to persuade John from hurting Zechariah again in his drunken rage.

Scrambling around his room in pain, frightened and crying, Zechariah grabbed his freshly inked high school diploma and a folder filled with other vital information and shoved it in the emergency book bag; birth certificate, social security card, transcripts from his school career, photos and multiple applications to various colleges smashed between a pair of jeans and a wrinkled ball of t-shirts and underwear.

He dived under his bed and pulled out an old cigar box. It was stuffed with wads of cash he had nipped over time from John’s wallet, mostly small bills. He ripped off the top and spilled the contents haphazardly into the bag and ripped the zipper closed.

The door crashed open, slamming against the wall and Zechariah shrieked when he saw his father stumbling like a ferocious hazy-eyed bear toward him, waving his arms through the air and reaching with clawed fingers.

Zechariah leaped across his bed, and standing on tip toes, unlatched the window and shoved the bag through before pulling himself up and crawling through the hole like a scurrying mouse. He felt a hand grasp tightly around his ankle, but he kicked back. His shoe made contact with his father's reddened face and then he was free.

He ran across the yard and vaulted over the low fence at the edge of the woods. He ran through the darkness as fast as his legs could carry him through the trees.

His lungs began to ache from the effort of sobbing and gulping in massive quantities of chilly winter air.

He had no idea where he was going to go. Perhaps the next town over. Maybe New Orleans, the big city, will be a good opportunity to start his new life.

But he wasn't going back home, if anyone in their right mind could call it that.

He slowed down to a walk when he was sure his father wasn't coming after him. The ground was solid in most places, but a few times he found himself splashing through puddles of standing water. The woods bordered on swamp territory and Louisiana was notorious for its marshy wet soil cloaked beneath innocent tufts of vegetation.

Zechariah pulled his sweater tightly over his fingers to warm them. The winter in this southern land wasn't icy cold, but the ever present wetness in the air clung to his skin, slipping through the fabric and making him shiver. His feet hurt and he had no idea how far he had traveled. He was grateful the moon was full and his eyes had adjusted quite well to the thick shadows of the night.

He slept in an abandoned truck on a lonely dirt road.
***

For three days, he was on the move. On the second evening, he found himself at the edge of a highway and hiked to the nearest town. He spent a few dollars at the local McDonald's on a couple hamburgers. Then he walked across the street to the truck stop. After explaining that he was newly homeless, the clerk took some pity and let him use the showers. Thankfully, nobody bothered him.

***

He woke up the next morning underneath a cocoon of newspaper pages in the back parking lot. He walked back into the station and asked the clerk to see a map. It was the same lady behind the counter from last night. She had worked a twelve hour shift and she seemed to be losing her patience with Zechariah, the soft spoken vagabond.

"You didn't pay for the shower but you have to pay for that," she snipped. Zechariah bit his lip and passed over a few dollars. She put her hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Now beat it, kid, before I call the cops," she warned.

Zechariah snatched the map off the counter and fled the truck stop.

He stopped under the nearest overpass and checked the map. He pinpointed his location by the town's Interstate Exit number. He chose to take the rode he was already on, a short cut to another town that was located along the back roads to New Orleans.

All that day and evening, he walked. The air was heavy and the moisture in the air froze his fingers. He was exhausted, but he walked onwards. The evening passed slowly and uneventfully. He rested uncomfortably in a church parking lot behind a dumpster but decided not to stay when he noticed a lot of police cars circling the area.

He hitched a short ride with an old lady who pulled over to ask if he was lost. She suspiciously drove him a few more miles to another town and dropped him off on the Main street. From there he began walking again, pushing himself to get as far as he could before he stopped for the night.

The houses thinned out considerably when he left the town which name he didn’t know, nor care. The foliage along the side of the road thickened again and the sun fell ominously behind moss-laden Cyprus trees. The further he walked the more wild and swamp-like the marshes became along the edges of the built-up asphalt road. Darkness came quickly again.

A low rumbling sounded in the distance. A winter storm was coming. Zechariah felt like he would pass out as the last remaining energy was drained from his body. Not a single car passed him. Suddenly, just when he resigned himself to sleeping on the side of the road, he felt gravel crunch under his feet. It was a driveway. He could see a rusted iron gate swinging welcoming on hinges in the moonlight.

He veered sharply off the road and walked down a seemingly endless rocky lane. He could see a house in the distance, massive with its white porch columns beckoning Zechariah. A funny feeling invaded his chest. The plantation structure seemed to pulse in the moonlight and Zechariah knew he was so tired that his vision had gone whacky. He saw no sign of life. The rotting porch was caving in and the door creaked loudly when he pushed it open.

"Hello?" he whispered. His voice echoed strangely loud in the empty parlor. Dust swirled around his feet and he coughed when it reached his nostrils.

"Anybody home?" he asked, certain the plantation had been abandoned for quite a while. Not a lick of purpose could be found in the building, which seemed to be folding in on itself.

He found some old newspapers in a corner and a dry log already in the fireplace. He pulled a lighter from his pocket and managed to produce a small fire crackling.

He sat on the cold stone hearth with his back to the warm, flickering flames. His hands were ice-cold and raw but he used them to remove his tennis-shoes from his aching feet. The miles trudged had taken a toll on his legs and he grimaced as he stretched his muscles tenderly. Everything throbbed and stung. His lips were chapped and his face was blushed red, in some places purple, from wind burns. The only part of him that didn't feel tired and worn out was his stomach. It growled menacingly.

Slowly his body began to thaw out. He regained some feeling in his hands. Although he ached and his muscles screamed in pain, Zechariah slumped over the hard stone fireplace and closed his exhausted eyes.

Minutes passed. Half dreaming, half awake, Zechariah jumped when he heard something thump hard against the wall that separated the living room and the hallway. His head jerked up and, though his body protested against this sudden unwanted movement, he stared wide-eyed at the spot the sound came from.

Probably the old plantation house settling or a small animal, he thought… but self-reassurances did nothing to calm his racing thoughts as he heard it yet again.

'A big animal,' he had time to think before the screams hit his ears like a clap of thunder and the walls themselves began to shake violently, pieces of peeling paint showering the rotting floor boards. Zechariah, a shriek on his lips, jumped up and scrambled behind a tattered and worn couch he hadn’t noticed before.

The banging noises continued. He heard howls and incoherent voices shouting crudely at one another and several times at him. It wasn't an animal. There were people in this plantation, though he could not see them, and they knew he was here. The room had shifted from refuge to hell. Breath caught in his throat, Zechariah scrambled across the floor to the staircase, frantic in his attempt to evade the house occupants and unable to reach the front parlor door.

Barely comprehending what he was doing, he launched up the staircase into the unknown bowels of the upper level. A lamp from one of the open doors lit a path to a bedroom farthest away from the offending racket on the ground floor.

In the darkness, Zechariah launched over the mattress and tripped over a nightstand, sending it crashing musically to the wooden floor.

"He's in one of the rooms!" he heard a voice cry out and listened intently, heart pounding out of his chest and afraid to move again. He heard raucous laughter. He hardly dared to breath.

"Oh, he's playing a game with us," said an amused voice, closer than before. The accent sounded guttural and foreign but Zechariah was too afraid for his own life to place it.

Then came a softer, more reasonable voice as he listened to the troupe of people climb the stairs, "Sully, stop this silliness please."

The hair stood up on the back of his neck as he heard several pairs of feet thudding across the creaking floor in the hallway. They were going to find him.

"Basil, you have no sense of fun," came the strange voice again. "Trespassers deserve no respect. When we find him, we will cut off his hands and carve out his tongue!" he heard the man giggle gleefully at the prospect.

Suddenly, the entire house went still and quiet. Zechariah knew that whoever they were, they could hear his startled and frantic heart dashing against his ribcage. Silence. Deafening and ominous silence. The bed perched between him and the door. Slowly, carefully and silently, he bent down and slipped into the consuming darkness and hoped this enclave might save him from the impending horror. 'My hands and tongue!' he whimpered in his head. The silence seemed to continue for ages as if he could live the rest of his natural life in the countless seconds of anticipation. Maybe they wouldn't find him. Maybe they would give up or one of them would propose that he had climbed out of one of the windows. He closed his eyes and covered his face against the cold, splintery wood.

A blood curdling scream erupted from his lips when he was grabbed by his sweater and yanked from his hiding place. His fingers slipped when he scrambled to grab hold of the bed frame.

"Ha! Found you, you miserable piece of shit!" the looming shadow laughed and threw Zechariah's struggling body against the wall. Barely catching himself from falling over, he was slammed back again and the dark figure pinned his shoulders down so that his only option was to struggle vainly against this powerful mad man's insanely strong grip.

A flood of tears leaked down Zechariah's face. He was going to die here in the cold darkness, unable to break free.
“Please don’t! Please don’t kill me!” he begged, the words catching horribly in his throat. The vicious silhouette seemed to take pleasure in his whimpering and struggling.

"Sully!" one of the men shouted and the shadows at the door were sharply illuminated. One of them had turned on the light in the room. Zechariah grasped wildly at the stranger pinning him to the wall, trying to push him away and banging on his chest.

The man holding him and grinning maliciously was tall. He had dark brown hair and his inky black eyes laughed at Zechariah's terror stricken face.

"Gotcha," he whispered and let go. Zechariah yelled and dropped to the floor, trying desperately to scramble towards the window. Another one of the men, the blonde one, jumped over the bed and blocked his escape. He held his hands out.

"Whoa now, buddy. Hold your horses!" he demanded, even grinning as if he found the situation humorous.

Zechariah abruptly changed course. He shot for the door and found himself bouncing off the chest of a massive hull of a man. He looked up into his face and the man's wide dark features were stony and cold. A yelp escaped his lips and he backed quickly away, landing in the arms of another man wearing glasses.

"NO! Don't hurt me!" he yelled and began to struggle when the man wrapped his arms around him.

"Hush, sweetheart. You aren't in danger. Sully, my good lad, don't you think this is enough?" he asked calmly. Zechariah latched onto him at this point, knowing that this man could keep this alarming person at bay. His English accent was stern but polite, as if he were speaking to a child.

Sully huffed and gestured at Zechariah. His eyes narrowed as Zechariah stared up at him from the edge of the arms that held him tightly.

"Basil, come now man. Yah mean to tell meh he cannot take a joke? He's the trespasser," he growled, but winked at the blonde man by the window. Zechariah shivered. The now obvious Scottish accent sent a chill down his spine. The blonde man returned a cock-eyed mischievous grin.

"Sully is right," the hulking man said. "Our fortress attracts wanderers. Something must be done." He lumbered past Zechariah and left the room.

"For... fortress?" Zechariah stammered, whipping his head around.

"Shush now. Never mind what Sef says. You must be ravenous. Would you like a few crackers and tea? A sandwich?" Basil asked, gently patting Zechariah on the head. "Yes, you look absolutely famished. Poor thing," he added and shot a disapproving look at Sully. Sully had the sense to look somewhat shamefully down at his boots and purse his lips in agitation.

Basil led Zechariah calmly down the stairs, shushing him every time he whimpered and looked back at Sully and the blonde man behind him.

"They won't hurt you. I'm sure Sully will eventually apologize," he said.

"Damnit, Basil. Nobody eats 'crackers and tea' for supper anymore," Sully groaned, ignoring the reprimand. "Get with the times, man."

Basil chuckled and led Zechariah through the parlor and into the dining area.

Sef sat at the table, shoveling a sandwich into his mouth. Zechariah stared at him when Basil disappeared from his side and dragged Sully and the other man into the kitchen, arguing in low whispers. Sef, although he was a gigantic monster of a man, was quite handsome. He had long shining black hair, pulled back into a pony-tail. He also had a tattoo on the left side of his strong face, along the hairline, and his heavy lidded eyes never once made contact with Zechariah's. It was a tattoo of a bird, he realized. A raven perhaps. He was intimidating but not in the way Sully was.

"Hi. My name is Charlie," the blonde man said and shook his hand. His sudden appearance had taken Zechariah by surprise and he yelped involuntarily. "I figured you was wanting to know my name, too."

He had a deep Cajun accent. He must have been from around the area, unlike the others.

"Hope we ain't scared you too bad, we was just having a bit of fun. You know," he explained. His blue eyes creased and twinkled in a smile. Having a good look at Charlie, too, Zechariah was astonished to see that he was also as handsome as Sef, but boyishly so with golden blonde hair and a rough shaven face.

Zechariah gulped. "I'm okay," he whispered, still trembling. He was confused and wishing someone would explain what was going on. Charlie stood before him, Sef sitting next to him at the dining table, and Basil and Sully emerged from the kitchen. All of them were unabashedly staring at him. He could feel his cheeks getting hot.

Sully crossed his arms and leaned against the fireplace mantel behind Sef. He lowered his chin and stared with chilly eyes at Zechariah. He was taken aback by how aggressive Sully looked. A scar ran from his temple down to his eyebrows, narrowed menacingly as he sized Zechariah's slight and, at the moment, twitchy form.

Basil smiled gently and settled his glasses on the bridge of his nose. His hair was an ash brown and short. It wasn't as chopped and spiky as Sully's but waved slightly around the edges of his soothing face. He patted down his crisp white button-down shirt and seemed, like Sully, to be waiting patiently for something. Did they expect him to speak?

"The place was empty. I thought it was abandoned. How did all of this stuff get here? I mean, the pictures and... and the dining table, and the rugs? The electricity didn't work, I tried. I didn't know anyone lived here. I was walking and it was really cold outside. I was tired. I'm sorry," Zechariah babbled frantically to explain his trespassing into their home.

Basil shook his head and gestured for him to have a seat.

"We knew it immediately when we saw you for the first time. But the question is, what is a little boy like you doing running away from home in the middle of the night? Your parents must be terrified," Basil said.

"Litt...? No, I just graduated high school. My parents, uh, kicked me out," Zechariah explained, sitting at the table. "I don't have anywhere to go."

Charlie clicked his tongue and immediately took a seat next to him, leaning his arm across the back of Zechariah's chair.

"You hear that shit, Basil? He ain't nothing but homeless. He wasn't no crazy trouble making kid, ain't he?" Charlie laughed and slapped the table top, causing Zechariah to jump high in his chair.

"Oh, poor wee little lad," Sully rolled his eyes and took a seat next to Sef. Sef grunted and began eating again. Basil took a chair on Zechariah's other side and pulled a plate of sandwiches toward him.

“Sully, mind your manners!” Basil scoffed.

"Or what? You'll throw Keats at me?" Sully laughed.

Basil ignored the jab with an icy glare.

"Here, have a bite. Would you like a nice cup of tea?"

Zechariah nodded, although unsure if he was willing to taste anything given to him. He still didn't trust these men. They seemed too nice, especially after the horrifying experience a few minutes earlier. Well, except Sully. Sef didn't really seem to notice, nor care if he was there or not. Charlie was a little too close for his comfort and Basil seemed really insistent that he ingest something.

But as soon as Basil put a sandwich in his hand, Zechariah couldn't stop himself from taking a bite. And another. And another one after that. At this point, he didn't care if it was poisoned. The painful lurching in his stomach subsided and he reached for another sandwich and swished it down with piping hot black tea.

Basil smiled sweetly and rested his chin on his hands, watching him eat. Charlie kicked back in his chair, munching on one of his own sandwiches and drinking a beer. Sully was devouring whatever was on his own plate and Sef grabbed a beer from the middle of the table and took a long, deep swig.

"Is this ham?" Zechariah whispered to Basil. He opened his mouth to speak but Sully leaned forward and spoke.

"Now now, laddie. What monsters do yah think we are? We only eat the flesh of lost little boys who wander into our house at night," he said, flashing a sly mean grin.

Basil harrumphed and threw a piece of bread. It hit Sully in the face and Sully threw back his head in a booming laugh.

"Sully!" he shouted. Zechariah looked down at his plate, inspecting the remaining bites of sandwich squeamishly.

"Manners, Basil!" Sully guffawed and Charlie laughed with him. Sef merely watched them.

Basil turned to Zechariah and placed his hand on his knee.

"Don't listen to Sully. It is indeed ham," he insisted, gazing intently into Zechariah's eyes.

"I know. He's just making fun of me," Zechariah whispered and Basil squeezed his knee slightly, nodding.

"Although Sully can be an absolute git sometimes, he's really a fine gentleman," Basil said in a louder voice. This made Sully laugh harder.

Charlie grinned from ear to ear. "A fine sir, indeed," he replied and winked. Even Sef rumbled in humor.

"Basil has always seen a force within Sully that, to others, he so obviously lacks in totality," Sef announced. Sully bared his teeth at Basil and raised a glass of tea in the air, as if in toast.

"Here here," he replied and took a swig.

Basil shook his head.

"No, I have witnessed it," he insisted. Zechariah caught the strange way they both looked at each other. There was something in Basil's eyes that caught his attention as he spoke and the way Sully cocked his head to the side and gazed back.

Then it clicked. They argued like a married couple. There was something going on between Basil and Sully- something that put Zechariah a little more at ease. But he did not say anything. Perhaps he was wrong.

Charlie slammed his beer bottle on the table. It was empty. He put his arm around Zechariah's shoulder, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Now I feel better. And goddamnit, where's Julius? He's been gone for hours," he complained.

"He is still in New Orleans. He will be back when his task is finished," Sef answered in a low voice.

"You make it sound like he's gone off to fight a dragon or spy on the Russians," Charlie chuckled. Sef nodded.

"Mr. Chin is the dragon of whom you speak. He drives a hard bargain, thus Julius has been sent to settle the matter," Sef said cryptically.

Charlie's eyebrows rose toward his hairline.

"That fucker? It is worth more than what he offered me! I turned Chin down last week. Tried to persuade me to take one thousand dollars for our Ching Dynasty collection. He thinks he’s clever," Charlie fumed. Sef nodded.

"What?" Zechariah whispered. Basil smiled knowingly.

"Yes. We are antique dealers," he said. "We aren't criminals or mad ax murderers- as Sully would have you believe." He jerked his thumb towards Sully.

"Oh. Ok," Zechariah mumbled and tried to stifle a yawn. His head had started to throb and his muscles ached all over.

"Charlie, can you take Zechariah upstairs. He needs rest," Basil instructed politely. Charlie leaped up in a jolly manner and pulled Zechariah's chair from the table so he could stand.

"Careful now, laddie. Charlie has taken a shine to yah," Sully said and propped his feet on the table in satisfaction at the disturbed look on Zechariah's face.

"I ain't going to do nothing," Charlie muttered with a twinge of embarrassment coloring his face, but he did glare at Sully before leading Zechariah out of the dining room.

"Are you guys sure I can sleep here tonight? I don't want to be a bother," Zechariah said.

"Nah, you ain't a bother. Trust me," Charlie responded, whistling a tune under his breath as they climbed the stairs.

"You can sleep in my room tonight. Ain't nobody but me here, so don't freak out or nothing," he said and pulled the covers on the bed down.

"Um... are you sleeping here too?" Zechariah asked, suddenly highly uncomfortable with the sleeping arrangements.

"Well yeah. But I ain't sleeping yet. I'll be downstairs waiting for Julius to get home. Got some things to discuss with him. You'll be okay all by your lonesome?" Charlie asked.

He nodded.

"Alright. If you need me, just holler," he offered and Zechariah stood in the middle of the room in confusion when he shut the door.

He looked around quizzically. He was standing on the cold wooden floor, barefoot. There was a gun cabinet across the room and the dresser drawers were overflowing with clothes; socks, t-shirts, and jeans shoved haphazardly into drawers and hanging out. There was a poster on the wall of a man holding a rifle in one hand, grinning, with the rack of a dead deer in the other.

"Where the hell am I?" he wondered aloud as if expecting the house itself to answer him.

The entire night had been so strange! Did Charlie really say that he was coming back to sleep in the same room?

"Fuck it," he said and crawled exhausted into the unfamiliar bed, fully clothed and pitiful.

He passed out immediately, not bothering to turn off the lights in Charlie's bedroom.