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He bashed Kevin's head with a brick.
It should have been simple. It WAS simple, in fact. Kevin had approached Cecil with arms and mouth wide, and Cecil had tightened his fist around his brick (thank goodness it was Carry a Brick Day), and bashed Kevin's head in with it.
What was not simple was what came after it.
He stared with his wide eyes and heaving chest and ground teeth at Kevin's motionless form, perplexed somehow by the unnatural angle of his body and the way his maniacal expression went slack while his eyes remained half-open and indiscernibly black. Blood steadily pooled beneath his head. Kevin's fingers and shoulder twitched occasionally, but he was unconscious. His headphones where Cecil had struck him were cracked; a broken wire gave off sparks and one earphone emitted a faint warbling whine.
Cecil tightened his fist on the brick again. Blood leaked between his hand and the grit, palm torn open against the rough surface. Very little blood clung to the place it had struck Kevin; just enough stick to allow hairs to cling.
Cecil knelt and stared into his own face.
It was like a preview of his own death. Slack, sallow, bleeding, this face was pitiful. Very haggard, yes, a face that bore more than a brick's worth of torment and pain.
This should be simple. Brick plus head equals done. Kevin lay unconscious, possibly dying, and Cecil did not even need to run away. He could just walk. He could probably even stop for a coffee before sauntering out of this incapacitated thing's sight.
Cecil put down the brick. Why wasn't this simple? He delicately touched the broken edge of the headset.
A static crackle sounded as he pressed near the broken wire. He pulled the set free, and Kevin's eyelids drooped fully shut as his head lolled on the ground. Cecil sat cross-legged and hunched over the headphones, turning them and gingerly pressing to see if he could correct the static and whine.
These weren't quite the same as his headphones. They were newer, brighter. He took off his own headset to compare the models. Plastic snapped together around the wires of his set; he pried it open and compared the insides. They were identical; he saw how the wire needed to be-- it had detached from a place further down-- and with his fingernails stripped and spliced together the wire. The whine stopped.
Kevin let out a low moan. Calmed and centered by the task of repairing the headset, Cecil did not startle, but his gaze rested hard and wary upon him. His double's hand dragged slightly along the ground, just three inches, and then fell limp. Kevin was still fully unconscious.
The puddle of blood was growing quite large. Kevin's slightly better tanned body was now paler than Cecil's. Breathing shallow. Almost imperceptible.
Cecil happened to have a roll of tape in his pocket, which he used to secure the plastic casing of Kevin's headset back into place around the repaired wires. Manipulating a ragdoll-limp neck, he pushed the headphones back over Kevin's ears.
He rolled him onto his back. Stared at him again for a very long time. Cecil had no mirrors.
He placed his hand on Kevin's face. He was cold. Lifting his eyelid, everything inside was empty and dark. Breath barely flickered on slack lips. Or-- Cecil leaned close. Kevin did not appear to be breathing at all.
Cecil gathered up Kevin's arm in a tight grip and hauled him to a nice, quiet spot. He wandered away and returned shortly with a shovel. Kevin had still not moved. His body was starting to cool.
He spent the rest of the day digging. His boy scout skills did not abandon him; the grave was perfect on all sides and four feet deep before he got tired and decided that was deep enough. He pushed Kevin inside.
Kevin groaned.
Cecil gripped the shovel and stared. Kevin's whole body shifted in a weak sort of squirm, and his black eyes opened. He looked up at Cecil and made a confused noise.
Cecil looked back at his own blood-encrusted face with an expression that just possibly may have matched. Then he shifted his grip on the shovel, and began replacing the dirt.
Soft disoriented noises and weak coughing did not register; it was not until he was packing down the last of the dirt that Cecil noticed everything was silent once again.
***
It should have been simple. Why wasn't it simple?
Hitting Kevin on the head with a brick had been simple. Brick plus head equals done. Burying him had been simple. Body plus dirt equals gone.
So why did everything seem to get more complicated?
He curled against Carlos, and Carlos could tell something was wrong. Cecil's body was stiff and mouth tense as he stared at the TV screen, not thinking about what he was watching but not really thinking about anything else, either.
"What's wrong, Cecil?" Carlos asked. And nothing had been less simple.
Tell him. Simple. Do not tell him. Simple. Choosing between the two? The hardest thing Cecil had ever done, and he had no idea why.
Cecil kissed him instead. This had always been simple. Carlos made a noise like he knew Cecil was stalling, avoiding, walling up, but then relaxed as Cecil's fingers slid straight to the spot that always made the scientist melt. Carlos hummed against him, perhaps deciding that whatever was wrong could be fixed by this.
Simple.
They pushed and pulled each other into the bedroom and out of their clothes. Cecil laid back and let Carlos bury him beneath his body, let his weight press the air from his lungs, let him fill his openings with dirt--
The vision was undeniable, and Cecil squirmed weakly, but despite a very palpable feeling of horror did not resist. He let Carlos continue on top of him while he pitched into the vision with silent despair.
"Cecil," Carlos' voice finally registered, "Are you all right?"
Cecil's head was turned aside, and breathing shallow and quick. He realized a tear had dripped down his cheek. "I'm fine," he gasped, suddenly finding himself to be out of breath. Everything felt hot and close, even though Carlos had moved completely off of him.
"Keep going," Cecil said, hands digging into the sheets.
Carlos hesitated.
Cecil said, "Asphyxiate me."
"What?"
"With a pillow. Take it off when I go limp."
"Cecil…"
"I want it."
"I want to go to sleep."
And then Carlos was lying firmly under the covers with his back to him, and Cecil was left staring at the dark and trying to figure out what about all this was so complicated.
***
Cecil did not say anything or ask for anything the next night. He still could not figure out what was so complicated and wrong, or why he did not grab any of the simple solutions that competed for his choice. They made love the regular way and fell asleep flopped lightly against each other.
And then the scratching began.
Cecil heard it and woke immediately. Carlos did not. Cecil laid on his back in the dark, chest pounding, eyes wide, as very clear scratching noises sounded very close by.
Insistent and directed, and he knew they were for him.
Wake Carlos up. Simple. It would not be so frightening if he were not alone.
If Carlos heard it, too.
Cecil closed his eyes and tried to return to sleep. Perhaps it would fade like a dream. He would wake again and find himself freed from a nightmare. But the scratching was real. It continued undeniably.
Cecil lay stiff and terrified for a long time while the scratching continued. Then he got up and followed the noise.
It was not in the bedroom. It was not quite that close. But it was close, and closer with each step he took. He followed the noise to the bathroom.
The mirror in the bathroom was covered in a thick drape. The scratching came from behind it.
Cecil pressed against the hard wall, stiff in terror, eyes wide, trying to still his heart and breathing.
The scratching continued. It was definitely in front of him. It was coming from beneath the cover. It was coming from the mirror.
Return to bed. Simple? Wake Carlos. Simple? Look in the mirror. Simple? Return to the grave. Simple? No, no, no, no. Cecil stared at the covered mirror and the scratching continued and he could not even decide which was greater, the urge to be deathly silent or the urge to scream.
Carlos found him in the morning, standing against the wall, eyes squeezed shut, fists clutching the drape to his chest. Gasping and whimpering and crying, he begged Carlos to lead him away from the mirror, because he was afraid to look. He had taken the drape off the mirror and he was terrified to move or look. Shushing him and humoring him and leading him away, Carlos insisted the mirror contained only a reflection of himself.
***
The longer Cecil waited to tell Carlos, the less simple that choice seemed to be. Did he even need to tell Carlos? It might not be necessary at all. Pointless. Why would he want to? Why would he not want to? What was it, anyway, he thought he may or may not need to say?
His brain was becoming sluggish and dead. Memories buried. Insight walled off.
The scratching did not go away at night, no matter how many covers he nailed over the mirror. They always started after Carlos fell asleep. Cecil always did not wake him.
Cecil himself did not sleep much at all anymore. The scratching kept him awake. He stumbled through his days and watched mild hallucinations creep across the dark at night. Carlos' lovemaking gave him some comfort and respite, but after a few days of seeing Cecil slip, that activity stopped. Carlos' worry only made the grip around Cecil's stomach more nauseating.
Carlos held him tenderly and close, about a week since… since Cecil had begun to be this way. He asked him again what was wrong. Cecil was beyond thought and words. He shrugged and looked away from Carlos' imploring gaze. Carlos assured him he loved him, but he thought maybe since nothing else was working, tonight Cecil should just have his space. You can text me if you need me. Okay?
Cecil had not responded. Carlos sighed, kissed his head, and walked out.
That was the first night Cecil slept alone. He was terrified to be alone with the scratching. But tonight, the scratching never came.
Just as he began to drift off in the silence, he heard, beneath his bed, a cough.
The scratching from the bathroom was gone. Instead, two feet directly beneath where he lay, a very human cough sounded again.
Cecil was lying on his stomach. His hand draped just over the edge of the bed. And he did not know whether to pull it onto the safety of the mattress, or freeze.
The coughing continued. Weak, feeble, like someone trying and failing to clear their lungs. Cecil's heart thudded in fear that any moment, a hand would touch him, and that terror froze him, prevented him from pulling it to safety.
He listened to the coughing and shifting beneath him until the sun rose; he drifted off briefly, and when he woke, the noise was gone. He sat up in the center of his bed with his arms wrapped around his knees for a very long time before he finally jumped off the bed and grabbed a fresh set of work clothes from the laundry room. With a high-pitched whine in his ears, he went to work.
***
Carlos texted him to ask how he was and he robotically texted back that he was fine. The day went by like a day, all meals and broadcasts forgotten in their mundanity. He found himself standing before the bed. The sun had set and he was awake and the coughing had not yet begun.
He waited, standing there, until well past midnight.
The coughing began.
Had the thing been sleeping under there? Had it just now awoken? Maybe it was just a lost dog with a chest cold.
Cecil could not move. What if he never did move? Simple? No. He could not face the unknown any more.
The coughing continued, the occasional sniffle and shift. The sound of dirt trying to clear out of lungs. Cecil's feet moved forwards. He knelt next to the bed.
He reached his hand underneath.
For several long moments, nothing. The coughing and shifting continued inches from his hand, and he was now too paralyzed to snatch it back. Maybe this was a hallucination. Maybe this was a dream.
A human hand slid across his.
Cecil gasped and scrambled back until he hit the wall. There he sat, knees drawn up, hands over his eyes, while he listened to the sound of something large drag itself out from beneath the bed. No matter how hard he pressed his palms against his eyes, no matter how deeply he hunched his shoulders, no matter how violently he shook, the sound of something the exact same size as himself crawling towards him did not diminish. It did not go away. There was another cough, two inches from his face, and dirt sprayed against the back of his hands.
Any closer, and it would touch him.
But it did not. The thing stayed there, two inches away, breath billowing on the backs of his hands. It coughed again.
He had no room to move. If he did not open his eyes, he risked bumping into the creature if he even shifted. Cecil continued to tremble and freeze.
Wait until morning. Wait until morning. The thing would be gone in the morning. The sun would rise and it would crawl back under his bed. Or retreat to the mirror. Or vanish and not return until it crawled over his body as he tried to sleep the next night.
It coughed again on his hands, and, sobbing, Cecil uncovered his eyes.
Kevin stared back at him. His face was not right. Slack and devoid of the spark of sentience. Blood was black with dirt down the side of his face and head. Every so often, he coughed, an automatic response of lungs still trying to clear themselves of soil.
It was simple, right? Kevin was real. He had not died and he had clawed his way out from beneath the five feet of dirt.
Or it was not simple. Kevin was--
No.
He was injured. He might be brain damaged. He needed help. He was real. He was real. He was real.
Cecil found his way to his knees. His hands found Kevin's shoulders.
"Are you all right?"
Kevin did not respond.
“I'll take care of you,” Cecil heard himself say.
Everything felt distant and surreal as he led Kevin to the kitchen and sat him down at the table. The florescent light was bright and crisp upon him, every speck of dirt and strand of disheveled hair made clear. The headphones Cecil had repaired were still on his head. The tape had come loose with the dirt, so Cecil took some tape out of a drawer and replaced it. Kevin did not respond as he slipped the headphones off and then back onto his ears.
“You must be hungry,” Cecil said. He stopped talking after that. His voice sounded too eerie in the silence of his apartment. Kevin still did not speak. Kevin still did nothing but stare, his face tracking Cecil's movements slightly but showing no sign of thought.
Cecil tried to make noise as he bustled with pans and can openers, warming some strawberry chicken soup for him on the stove. He filled a glass with water and dissolved a vitamin tab into it. He would nurse Kevin back to health. Simple. Nothing he remembered had really happened. See him sitting before him, lost and only in need of a little care.
Cecil set the soup in front of him. Kevin did not touch it. Kevin only stared with that dead face.
Cecil hesitated. Picked up the spoon to put nourishment to Kevin's lips.
Kevin coughed.
Cecil put down the spoon.
“Come on.”
He took Kevin by the hand.
He led him out into the night. That hand was cold in his. Stiff. Dead. He took Kevin back to the grave.
“This is where you belong.”
The ground was disturbed. It looked like something had dug its way out from underneath. Cecil got on his hands and knees and dug. Had to make things right. Had to put Kevin back where he belonged.
Digging by hand was tiring, and at some point in the process, Cecil passed out.
***
He woke at sunrise lying in a shallowly dug grave of dirt. Kevin was beside him. He was not breathing.
He went to the station. Maybe people saw him. Maybe people remarked on the dirt. Maybe he said coherent things into the radio. His phone buzzed with Carlos' name on the screen, but he did not answer it. His show ended. He went straight home. He did not eat. He did not shower.
He stood for a long time in front of the mirror. Its covers were still firm. There were no scratching sounds. He stared for a very long time, then retired to his bedroom.
Kevin was sitting in his bed.
Back against the headboard, covers pulled over his lap, face blank and staring.
Cecil was tired, so tired, and nothing was simple and everything was real. He wavered a little, then crawled onto the bed. He sat in front of Kevin and stared back.
The sound of someone coming through the door should have startled him, but nothing was scarier than this.
"Cecil?" Carlos called. "You haven't been texting, I wanted to see if you were… Cecil. Cecil! What… oh, gods."
Carlos stood next to him, he knew, though he could not take his eyes away from Kevin's face.
"I killed Kevin, Carlos. Or I tried to. He was alive when I buried him. I've been hearing him for days. We have to help him," Cecil thought. But he only thought it. He did not say it. It was not that simple.
Carlos looked directly at Kevin. "What happened?" he asked. Some part of Cecil was relieved, or horrified, that Carlos could see Kevin, too.
Carlos touched Kevin's face, waved his hand in front of his responseless eyes. "Talk to me. Are you okay??"
Cecil said nothing as he watched Carlos prod the almost-corpse. Kevin's face tracked slightly but was otherwise totally slack.
"Cecil," Carlos said, shaking his double slightly. "Cecil. Come on. I'll help you."
He got Kevin to his feet, and led him from the room.
Cecil sat motionlessly and stared ahead. Carlos had not seen him. Cecil himself was not real. His hand crept up, and touched the tape on the headphones that rested over his ears.