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Luminous Bones

The stars would fall if he commanded them.

By Varian RossPublished 2 years ago 16 min read
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Luminous Bones
Photo by Angela Compagnone on Unsplash

The young man who sat before Detective Ashmore was caked in mud. Dirt clung to his long blond hair. His hands were covered in blisters from digging a grave. He’d attempted to wash the worst of the dirt from his hands before coming in, but there was still filth under his fingernails. He’d had plenty of time to change clothes before turning himself in. But he still wore the same stained white poet’s shirt.

The same outfit he’d worn when he buried his partner alive.

“It was an act of love.” Gage reached for the cup of water that sat on his side of the table. He paused, staring at his nails as though seeing all the dirt for the first time again. He lowered his hand back to the table.

The small room he and Ashmore sat in was dull, without color. The walls and floor were the color of concrete. Ashmore knew the floor was concrete. It was easier to clean up dirt like what Gage was tracking in. Or ashes. Or blood.

“Burying Andy alive?” Ashmore prompted. She drew her notebook closer to her.

“Yes.” Gage was quiet for a moment. “He was clearly making it up. The curse, the stupid turtle, dying, everything. And still, I did what he wanted.”

“Is there any part of this whole thing you know is real,” Ashmore asked. If psychiatric help was what this man needed, he should get that before being interrogated more.

“The carved turtle was the only real thing.” Gage replied. “This entire charade started when Andy asked me to build a coffin.” He shrugged. “So I began to build a coffin….”

###

No more stars whispering to him. No more dreams of a vast void. Just the ceiling of the dorm room above his head. Andy blinked, and turned his head to check his phone. A day had passed, and again it had been a full moon when this strange thing had happened.

He lifted a hand to feel his pulse. His arm moved slowly, his limbs felt stiff. He pressed cold fingers to his neck. The beating of his heart was slow. Too slow. Andy tried to move his legs. Flexing his foot sent pain shooting up his leg. His vision turned red. Then the color receded, and he was left staring up at a bland white ceiling.

A flicker of color made him stop moving his hand back to where it had lain on the blankets. Andy lifted his hand closer to his face. The tendons stood out from the strain of such a simple action. Andy slowly turned his hand, flexing his fingers even as sweat poured down his face.

Light flickered from within his limbs. The glow was brief, there and gone again. Andy tried flexing his fingers. Tears came to his eyes at the stiff limbs moving again after so many hours of being frozen. There was another flicker of unnatural color beneath his skin, blue this time.

Andy laid his hand back down to wait for Gage to come back from whatever all night study session he’d pulled. Gage would know what to do about this.

Andy slept.

Again, he dreamed of a castle of black stone reaching to the sky. He dreamed of the stars themselves falling at his command. He dreamed of an eternal storm raging far above his kingdom.

He suddenly woke at the sound of a door slamming shut, and the scent of pizza filling the small room that he and Gage shared.

“I wonder if they notice I skip class every full moon?” The question was out of Andy’s mouth the moment the door closed.

“Not even a ‘hello, I’ve been asleep all weekend,’ for me,” Gage asked. Andy heard him dump his books on his desk. “But yes, dear, I have noticed this pattern.”

“I did something stupid.” Andy slowly managed to sit up. His muscles burned with the movement. He fought back tears. “Remember that sea turtle I bought, and the shop owner said it was cursed?”

“Yes, and you laughed at it.” Gage began eating. “Why,” he said around a mouthful of pizza.

“The light sank into my eyes, when I held the sea turtle carving up to the full moon.” Oh, he was aware that this next part sounded unreal. But it was his suspicion. “And since then…I die.”

The initial response was Gage choking on pizza.

“Are you,” he coughed some more, “are you seriously,” Gage cleared his throat again, “telling me you die every full moon?”

“I am.” Andy finally looked at Gage. “And I need your help.”

“Anything you need.”

Those words from his partner would normally warm Andy. But this was more than a simple request for a hug. If he was correct, this was a transformation that no one and nothing could stop.

“You have some woodworking skills,” Andy tried to make his words sound casual, “build me a coffin.”

Gage raised an eyebrow at this, but said nothing.

“Bury me for a night,” Andy continued, “and then I will rise.”

“I can’t bury you,” Gage said. He reached for another slice of pizza. “Are you going to eat any of this, or am I going to have leftovers for a week?”

“Why not,” Andy demanded. He ignored the question about the pizza. There were more important things to discuss.

“Because we’re in a college town,” Gage snapped, “and I can’t think of anywhere to discreetly bury a full-sized coffin!”

Andy reached into the pile of random objects he kept on the bedside dresser. Amidst piles of loose change, old receipts, and crumpled up notes, he found what he was looking for.

“Here, catch—and be careful.” Andy tossed the small bundle to Gage, wrapped in white silk cloth. Gage unwrapped the package, the carving of the sea turtle beginning to come into view. Andy covered his eyes. The small carving may have been the size of a quarter, but it had begun to ruin his life.

“I feel nothing.” Gage wrapped the carving back up. He held it out to Andy, who gestured at the pile of junk. He may as well keep it. At least if he had it, no one else would go through this.

At Gage’s words, Andy both felt relieved and more miserable than before.

If his bones were turning to shell, or perhaps come kind of crystal, then he was alone in this terrible transformation.

###

“You built him a coffin.” Ashmore said. “You took your partner’s claims seriously—you didn’t get him to counseling, you simply built a coffin for him?” She frowned, tapping her pen against the notebook in front of her.

“That I did,” Gage said. “Andy was…very solitary, like I said to you earlier. He wouldn’t go out to lunch if he could help it, let alone see someone like a therapist for issues he didn’t even have.”

“Was he agoraphobic,” Ashmore asked.

“Not that I know,” Gage replied, easing himself back in the chair. “He’d go to class just fine, he was an English major, specialized in creative writing. He wrote horror stories, mostly. Gave me nightmares, some of them.”

“And the first full moon since he told you about this,” she asked, “what was that like for you? What happened?”

“I learned he’s one hell of an actor,” Gage snapped. “It was ridiculous. One moment we were talking, like two fucking normal people. Then his voice got softer, and his movements started to get slower. The next thing he did was, he laid down on the bed, and then he somehow. Stopped. Breathing.”

“You’re still convinced this was all an act on Andy’s part?” Ashmore held back revealing that she was the division’s expert on the supernatural. What they needed was the location of where Andy had been buried. Even a being made of shell and bone would suffocate under the pressure of six feet of earth.

“Of course it was an act,” Gage replied. “I shoved him, coffin and all, under my bed. I didn’t hear a sound until I dragged him back out the next morning. Really, I should just have left him there.”

“For him being your partner,” Ashmore said, “you’re making it sound like you didn’t have the best relationship.”

“We got alone great when he wasn’t making things up about a curse,” Gage snarled. “Now, let me finish talking. Before you go and dig the stupid pile of bones up. He’ll have a different version of the story, if he’s not dead already.”

###

Andy felt his mortal body fall back on to the bed. He felt his body stop breathing. He stepped away from his body. He stepped out of his waking life into the realm of his dreams.

In this world, the stars would fall if he commanded them. He stood at the top of the tower. Above, the sky was forever in wait of storms that would not come. He had seen a storm in this world once, and the beauty had taken his breath away. Well, Andy thought with a chuckle, what little breath he had left. The storm had torn the previous king apart. The king was a sacrifice so that the world could change. Andy was grateful for the storm. It had allowed him to take his rightful place in this world.

Below, his subjects went about their lives.

His subjects in this world were only pale skeletons. They did not have the luminosity that Andy did. They did not shine like he did. They went about their daily lives, not a single candle in sight. No fire lit their way. Their homes were cold and filled with howling wind.

Andy turned away from the figures below him. The inner chamber he dwelt in was richly furnished. The walls were papered in velvet, the floor plush carpet that embraced his skeletal feet with every step. Time moved slowly here. The enteral night drifted by like a slow and peaceful river.

Sadly, he could not stay long is this realm. Even when he was beginning to glow with his true light, he was still bound to the world he’d been born in. But that was changing. His beloved had built him a coffin. Perhaps, if he asked nicely, Gage would bury him for real. Below the earth, he would have no need to rise. Once he was there, he could stay in this realm of his dreams forever.

Light began to shine behind him. Was it already time to return to the living world? The place where he had dull skin. The world where he sometimes saw his beloved looking at him like he’d gone mad. The light beckoned, and Andy stepped backwards into it.

“Back to the land of the living, I see,” Gage said as Andy opened his eyes. Andy’s head was pounding. That hadn’t happened last time. The scent of dust filled his nose.

“Yes, well,” Andy’s voice was raspy; he slowly sat up, “more dreams about the whispering stars.” He winced, hearing his joints crack as he stretched.

“I checked your pulse,” Gage said, “you really did die.” He turned away as he said that. He tossed a pile of blankets at Andy, and sat back down at his desk. Gage slapped headphones on, turned on some music, and went back to studying.

Andy’s hands were thinner now, more skeletal. He looked over at Gage, checking he was distracted. He turned his hands in the light, seeing the shimmering even in dim lighting now. It had intensified. Andy reached up to feel his face. His skeleton felt gaunt. If he looked in the mirror, Andy wondered, would he even recognize what he saw?

###

“You still didn’t take him to a doctor?” Ashmore tapped her pen on her notebook. She knew various supernatural creatures and curses existed—she worked with them every day. Most curses could be broken easily. She needed more information about this one before her real work could begin.

“No, I did not,” Gage replied.

That had been the answer she’d expected. But why go through all of the work of building a coffin? Why help his partner, when Gage clearly thought the curse was a bunch of nonsense.

“Even when he was clearly showing signs of trauma from being kept in a coffin for nearly 24 hours?”

“He’d been dead the whole time,” Gage said, “I checked his pulse several times.” He had begun to pick at his nails, trying to scrape the dirt out from under them. “Look,” Gage said, “I know being a mortuary science major makes me suspicious. So does my being his platonic partner. It’s always the husband in those crime shows. Despite my major, I did not kill him.”

“The magic did,” Ashmore asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes,” Gage replied. There was an eager note in his voice. “You’ll see soon why I had to do what I did.”

###

One more night and the moon would be full. One more night among those of flesh and blood. Then he would be back in the land of his dreams. Again he would be the skeletal king his subjects looked to. He was their light in living form. He was the only color in their world.

At the sound of a door closing, Andy turned. His beloved was nearing him, wrapped in a leather coat. Andy stood to meet him. He lifted his arms to the moon, to embrace the source of light. To embrace what gave him this new life apart from beings made of flesh.

His beloved slipped on the wet concrete of the steps. Gage fell back, one hand on the railing. The other hand rested on the stairs where he’d caught himself from falling. If only he could transform his beloved to be like he was. These new bones were so much more durable than mere mortal flesh.

Gage squeezed his eyes shut when Andy approached him. He turned his face away.

If Andy had still had eyes to cry with, such a show of distrust would have made him weep.

“Don’t worry,” he said in Gage’s ear as he lifted Gage into his arms, “it only comes into effect if you look at me during the full moon.”

Instead of the embrace he expected, Gage pressed his hands against Andy’s chest, pushing him away. Andy put his down and stepped back. Gage had never been one for public affection. Not even when they had both been human.

Gage pushed his way past Andy and headed for his car. As his beloved walked away, Andy knew deep in his shining bones that Gage was not going to the movies.

Hours later, Gage returned.

“I found a place to bury you,” was all he said. “Get in the car at sundown tomorrow. I’ll drive us there.”

“Sisters of Mercy,” Andy asked.

“If you want a soundtrack to your death, sure.” Gage shrugged. “But some of us are still human and need sleep.”

“Gage,” Andy quietly said. “Thank you. I mean it. I only wish we could be together.” Together in the land of his dreams. Together in the land of eternal storms and eternal night.

Gage did not reply, only turned the lights off. Andy sat and watched the moon rise. One more night and it it would be full. One more night, and he would no longer have to deal with these being of flesh and blood. It would be him, alone in his starlit kingdom of the dead.

###

“You buried him alive?” Detective Ashmore slowly put her pen down and waited for Gage to answer.

“Isn’t that obvious,” Gage asked dryly.

“Even though you clearly thought none of this was real.” Ashmore said. “He was making all this up, you said. You told me that he got the luminous skeletal look with makeup. And yet, you buried your partner alive.”

“He was dead at the time.” Gage said, clasping his hands and leaning forward. “Besides, he was rapidly turning into a skeleton. If you exhumed what I buried last night, all you’d find would be a pile of broken, luminous bones.”

###

He’s burying you in hatred, not love. Somehow Andy knew this. Would it ruin everything? Or did it not matter what motivation was behind the burial?

Andy felt his breathing stop. He could not move if he’d have wanted to. The few thin strands of light that would have been there from the vents were gone. The sun must have gone down.

Gage cursed at a bump in the road. Andy knew where they were now, and it was still in a brightly lit part of town.

Yet there was no light at all.

Had Gage sealed the vents to his coffin? True, he did not need air. But why was he still aware of his surroundings? Normally he would be in the place of eternal storms by this point.

Gage turned up the music, Andre Eldrich now singing loud enough to drown out the sound of the road beneath the wheels. One album went by, then another. A third album passed, and Gage just started it over again.

If you want a soundtrack to your death. Gage’s words, and the sarcasm he hadn’t caught before came back to Andy. The anger that was thinly veiled beneath the jabs about the heated coffin. The fact that Gage had never checked his pulse. The roaring headache he’d woken with—Gage had thrown him into the coffin.

Now Gage was going to bury him alive. And he’d agreed to it.

If whatever propelled this curse did not claim him soon, what would he go through? Would he feel every clump of dirt as it fell down upon him?

The car had stopped. The music had gone off.

Andy heard Gage take something out of the trunk. A shovel. He knew it was a shovel, he’d checked earlier that day that Gage had everything he needed.

Andy had just counted on being away at the time. Finally gone from this world and never coming back.

He felt himself being lifted, coffin and all. His bones reverberated with phantom pain when he was dropped. From outside the coffin, the sound of digging continued.

“Finally,” Andy heard Gage say, “I can get rid of you. You and that stupid fucking turtle that started this whole mess.”

Andy felt himself being hoisted up again. This time he fell further than before. Six feet down into a grave. He landed face down, and felt something break.

He heard a handful of dirt hit the coffin. Then there was a thump as the first shovelful landed on him. Then another. He heard something else hit the coffin. He knew it was the carved sea turtle.

He would be buried with the cause of his curse.

His bones began to collapse as more dirt poured down on him. With each shovel full of soil, another bone broke. If he could have screamed, he would have. But he was not feeling pain, only the memory of it.

The storm in his lands reached for him.

And it tore Andy apart.

THE END

supernatural
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About the Creator

Varian Ross

Horror author and poet. Published with Ghost Orchid Press and Horror Tree.

On Twitter @VarianRoss

On Patreon here [link]

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