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Forever chasing ambition, Vincent had taken a one-way flight down to New Orleans, seeking stardom in the fantastic moving picture shows. The emotive actors, their fluid flux and charming movements – it was as mesmerizing as a butterfly in a jar. As soon as he saw his first film – Charlie Chaplan and the Lion – his heart was all but captured.
He had to be there, on that flickering gray paper, dancing for all to see.
He didn’t care how many impossibly tall buildings he had to wriggle up, or the flaming stunts he’d have to stomach, and or even all the lions he had to look right in their glistening eyes, all to get the perfect shot.
This was the sort of dream one would kill for.
So, that’s why Vincent flew to New Orleans. It was closer to DC than Hollywood for sure and he hoped to test his skill against the NOLA film studios or perhaps snag a role in a Winter Production. Something, anything to get his foot in the door.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t that kind of handsome. They’d said it outright. Cross-eyed and square-faced, with ‘weird’ teeth. He was too thin and when he finally filled out in muscle, he was too ‘out of proportion,’ whatever that meant. His heterochromia, which his dad had despised, was just another mistake in the long list of physical traits God had for some reason approved.
So here he was, in the boggy bayous of New Orleans, his home for the past 3 years after the stock market took its nasty hit. The arts were dying fast and he supposed he was a primary contributor. The limp body of the producer he was burying had lost its warmth three hours ago and rigor-mortis was determined to hook its spindly elbows into every single fucking tree root he dragged it over.
New Orleans had a horrible mosquito problem. He could feel them kissing up his neck, pinching and sharp. His hands were too dirty to swat himself and so he suffered, miserably, as the corpse sloshed a thick trail through the mud. His shoulders hurt. His back was sore. He needed to remember to lift from the legs.
28, unmarried, and truly, was this the best he could be? At this rate, even if he achieved his dream, he’d absolutely be playing second fiddle. Maybe he could be one of the pitiful background characters that existed only long enough to get bonked by the charming host.
This producer wasn’t going to be assigning roles anytime soon. He was dead.
Vincent found a decent-enough spot and readied his shovel. He began to dig. A good thing about New Orleans – the dirt wasn’t so packed in. It came out like fudgy brownies, clumps of root and bayou slime with every scoop. Black and wriggling with worms, disturbed frogs making mass exodus. He dug and dug and dug until he was seriously considering just throwing the body at the gators. Yeah, that’ll be good enough. They’ll eat it. Yeah.
He took a long draw from his cigarette, his only partner in crime. Murder was such lonely work. It was tedious, boring, and surprisingly sticky. However, for some reason, his chest always hurt worse after a rejection, a culling discomfort that was only abided by swift delivery. In this case: a hole in a head.
THUNK.
SPLAT.
The body fell into its shallow grave. He took another puff and, rolling exhausted shoulders, began to fill it in. It was then that a twig snapped and Vincent realized, all too slowly, he wasn’t alone.
He needed to get more sleep or maybe drink more coffee, his movements were so slow as he hurried behind a line of trees, dismayed that his corpse was only covered by a light sprinkling of dirt. Maybe the wanderer wouldn’t look too closely…? If they did, well… his hands tightened around his shovel.
But they didn’t sound very big.
And was that…humming?
It was certainly more pleasant than the mosquitos. A pleasant “mh-mh-mmm” broke through the cricket song, followed by the rustle and drag of something Vincent knew all too well.
His shovel almost slipped out of his hands. He scrambled to catch it, heart pounding.
From the shadow emerged the back of a person. A body dragged, suspended as he pulled it under the armpits. Vincent couldn’t identify much about him, either, but at that moment, like an angel arriving, a breeze stirred the branches and moonlight glanced through the cover. He saw a sickeningly white corpse, mouth lolling open in a scream of frozen agony. The killer was still cloaked in shadow, but he caught sharp eyes from behind spectacles, and he wondered for a horrifying moment if he’d been seen. If the second killer in the night knew he was there.
And, oddly enough, if he was being laughed at.
Vincent felt a rush of things: indignation, shock, even a bit of fear. But more than that, the chasm in his chest yawned wider than an open grave. He was lonely. So incredibly lonely, and here staggered a cure to that loneliness. Someone whose life had led him to burying bodies in the woods – a fellow degenerate rejected by society.
He realized the other man had not seen him, as his clever dark eyes settled back to his work. Vincent watched, greedily, as he eased the body over a thick root. His back was hunched, his waist so small even when bent over and limbs odd and elegant, like the graceful lankiness of a deer.
A dog barked. Vincent’s attention flashed. There- right there - a hunter. A third killer in the woods. His prey was probably the night’s deer, considering the baritone of his companion. Vincent caught the flash of a scope and, slow as stillwater, he saw his new friend react.
He’d frozen up. That elegant bizarre creature of shadow and mystic was not moving and there was a gun pointed straight at him.
The dog barked again. Vincent could imagine the finger settling the trigger.
His shovel splattered to the mud as he vaulted out from behind the tree, through the clearing, over the ferns. He’d never run that fast, not since he was a boy, chasing after the car that took his father out to the first war.
His legs were longer now. He’d make it.
The gun sounded just as he slammed into the petite body of his new friend. He realized it’d hit him immediately, from the screaming agony in his shoulder. So this is what it feels like – wow, I really was hurting people.
He gasped, forcing out a scream, but was stopped with it in his throat. Choked. The person beneath him, with the dazzling dark eyes and frightfully thin body, was pressing a hand to his mouth.
“Shh.” He hissed through sharp uneven teeth.
Blood gushing from his shoulder, Vincent felt his body go limp. “Gh…?”
He could hear the hunter shuffle forward, confused. He’d seen a flash of movement – something fell. His dog was snuffling, breathing in the reek of the bodies. It was an ugly mutt-thing with eyes too blue and heaving black gums. He knew in an instant it’d catch them immediately.
“What the devil’s-”
He had to think. He had to do something – anything. What was an excuse, a reason for two young men to be out in the woods, dirty and alone? What was something that would ensure the hunter would turn the other way and run as fast as he could back to his catholic mama?
Vincent sucked in a breath, braced, and grabbed the face of his friend. He kissed him, in the way he’d seen actresses embrace their lovers in theater. The old pornography in the dingy dark rooms, the screen alive with action. He grabbed a fistful of that short, surprisingly coiled hair, and forced the kiss deeper, realizing only then that his new friend was reciprocating.
He tasted bad, like brandy and rot. A toothache, blood in his gums. Vincent doubted he was much better. Besides this wasn’t – it wasn’t – it wasn’t meant to be a good kiss. Just a cover.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” The hunter spat, “Fucking faggots. Faeries. Shit.”
They broke away for a second, turning two sets of eyes up at their unwilling audience. Vincent felt a hand on his chest, pushing him away.
The hunter had the decency to look a little guilty. Vincent, in retrospect, would realize he probably didn’t notice the blood. After all, his scream had been stifled.
“My sincerest apologies,” his friend huffed, in a voice Vincent could feel strain his diaphragm. He sat up, then, pulling Vincent aside. Hands on his shoulders, fingernails digging in just a little. “Truly.”
“A waste… of a perfectly good… bullet,” Vincent added, breathlessly. His voice was hoarse – it was the first time he’d spoken all day, since his audition that morning. Murder was a silent business. Burying a body was even quieter.
But did it have to be?
“Go to hell. Come on, boy.”
The hunter turned back, calling his dog with a wolf-whistle. They stomped away, none the wiser to the two dead bodies thrown haphazardly in the brambles, or how close he’d come to adding a third.
They held suspended for a long moment in time, listening to the squelch and tramp of his footsteps slowly fading into the swamp. Only when they were sure he was gone did Vincent feel something cold and sharp lightly poke his abdomen, just under the navel.
A blade?
“I understand that you thought that was necessary,” his friend said, cooly, blood on his lip and a dangerous glint in his eyes, “but you have five seconds to get off me.”
You didn’t have to tell him twice. Vincent scrambled up and under him, the other uncurled. Rising, caked in mud and yet still elegant. He took off his spectacles, smiling ruefully at their splatter.
“Next time, don’t freeze up.” Leaning awkward against the nearest tree (which oddly enough resembled twisting antlers) Vincent hazarded. Warm blood had soaked his sleeve, all the way to his twitching fingers. His back was growing cold.
“Oh, I wasn’t planning on it.” The stranger scoffed. After a beat of what Vincent dreaded might be irritation or even outrage, he finally wiped his hand on his slacks and held it out.
A peace offering?
The palm was lighter than the back, though in the dark all cats were gray.
“Anyway. My name’s Alastor, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance." He grinned and in that moment Vincent realized he had seen him before, when he was hiding behind the tree. Perhaps he’d noticed him far before Vincent was even aware of his presence. Those eyes, deep as the darkest pool, were laughing at him, mocking, teasing, I know your little secret.
And you thought you’d get the better of me, mm?
But honestly he didn’t mind that one bit. He took the hand in both of his, bloody and trembling, “Alastor… Call me Vincent. And… truly, the pleasure is all mine.”