The Hardon Brothers and The Satanic Cult

(Sequel to "The Hardon Brothers and The Case of The Cum-Crazed Zombies")

Copyright 2008 C.K.G.

Working Rough Draft

     "Jensen, open the mother-fucking, goddamn door!" Seventeen-year old Jacob Hardon was in a fury, banging on the door of his younger brother's bedroom.  Two minutes prior, he had been slammed into awakening with the seeming reality of "My Chemical Romance" performing live in the Hardon home.  

     "This is your last warning, you moody little fucker!  Either you shut off the music, or I break down the door and demolish that stereo!" 

     Unheard or disregarded, the threat was ignored, and the music continued to blare.  Jacob turned, ran down the steps, and exited the back door.  In front of him stood the guest house into which Sterling, the eldest Hardon brother, had moved after their parent's death.  He had distanced himself from Jacob and Jensen's fraternal strife, choosing instead to grieve alone.  Yet, 'alone' was a subjective word, which did not exclude his girlfriend, Bonnie Edwards.  

      As Jacob approached the guest house, he could see the two of them locked in an embrace.  Tears were coursing down Sterling's face, his features a masque of anguish.

     "Why can't you be stronger, Sterling," Jacob whispered to himself.  "Why can't you be forged of steel, as hard and as ripped on the inside as you are on the outside?  I imagine you strong like that; I fantasize I'm the one who strips you of your weaknesses and makes you into the man you should be.  That bitch at your side, what's she doing, but codling you?  Is she motivating you, telling you to get off your ass, it's been three weeks since your parents died, and you've got a cock-hugging wrestling singlet to put on, and a team to lead?  Is 'dear' Bonnie reminding you that your family is falling apart?  That you have a kid brother who needs to be taken across your knee and wailed with a large paddle embedded with iron spikes?  No, she's taking your face in her hands, and she's telling you everything will resolve itself in time.  Sterling, you've shacked up with Oprah Winfrey, and she's assuring you that it's irrelevant that the world is going to Hell, so long as you're doing right by yourself.  Not 'ourselves', not this family, which she's not a part of by the way, not right by Jensen and I.  Mom and dad are dead!  Get over it!  Stand up and be a man!  Act your dick size for once!  Those are the words I long to shout at you.  I want to storm into that guest house, rail at you for letting all this fall on my shoulders, and 'gently' remind you that I was the one, mere months ago, who was raped and tortured by a maniac.  I saw a child get gutted before my eyes; I was a drooling convalescent who could only speak one word.  'Cum'.  What a word it was, but I could have done without the psychological lobotomy that accompanied it.  Understandably, Sterling, the experience left me quite altered, a bit unhinged, prone to violence and fits of rage, and our smart-mouthed, anything but sweet, sixteen-year old brother, has woken me up at 7 on a Saturday morning to some strung out, Goth fey boy singing about teenagers scaring the shit out of him.  So, Sterling, get your mother-fucking tight ass in the house and deal with Jensen, or I'm going to decapitate the little bastard!  Those are the words I long to shout at you.  Yet, I can't.  Why?  Because I don't just, but I am in fact in, love with you.  And I can't ask you to set aside your grief, no matter how illogical it is becoming, and to kill our little brother when I can perform the task quite adequately on my own."

     Turning from the guest house, Jacob began a march towards the main residence when his father's tool shed caught both his eye and imagination.  Why struggle to break down a door when it could be dispatched by less injurious means?  Why not use a buzz saw instead?  It would scare the living shit of out of Jensen.  He'd think Michael Myers had come for him, and it'd be pure brilliance in that it would instill terror and defuse Jacob's rage in the same shot.  Yes, it was too heinous to go undone.    

    Minutes later, the whirling blade was slicing through Jensen's bedroom door.  However, Jacob's impatient nature would not allow completion of the task.  Yearning to see the look of terror on Jensen's face, he turned off the buzz saw and peered through to the other side.  Incredulously, the youngest Hardon brother was apparently still sleeping...or in the depths of a far more permanent slumber.  

     Panic rapidly overtook Jacob; the deafening music, the roar of the buzz saw, neither had stirred Jensen.  More worrying, Jensen was lying atop the blankets on his back, arms folded across his chest.  His t-shirt was black; his briefs were black, and even his naturally light blonde hair had been dyed an ebony shade.  Jensen's face was as pale as a corpse; all that Jacob could think was that his younger brother had killed himself.

     Frantically, Jacob reached through and unlocked the door.  He rushed in, grabbed the blaring stereo, threw it out the open window, and then jumped atop Jensen.  Jensen's eyes, full of shock and confusion, shot open, and he rose as far he could from the bed.  It was then that the noise-blocking headphones  he wore became clearly visible. 

    "Jake, get off me!," Jensen screamed, louder than he had intended due to the headphones.

     Jacob promptly tore them from his ears and tossed them to the floor. "You little shit, you scared the fuck out of me!  I thought you were lying in here dead!"

    "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm clearly not, so get off!"

    "No, I'm staying where I am until you explain why, at the crack of dawn, you thought I wanted to be awoken to Gerard Way bellowing about sex and death while you were off in adolescent, wet dream la la land."

    "When I went to bed, my headphones were plugged into the stereo; they must have come unplugged this morning.  Now, for the last time, get off!"

    Jacob did not oblige.  "You're damn right it won't happen again, because that stereo is in a million pieces on the back lawn."

    "You had not right to do that!  It wasn't your property; mom and dad bought it for me last Christmas!"

    "Yeah, well..." Jensen paused and lowered himself so that his face was mere inches from Jensen's.  "They're dead, and I'm your daddy now."

    "Jake, you're scaring me; get off!"
    "From the erection pressing against my ass, I believe you'll be getting off this morning before I will."

    "Jake, get off him, now!" Sterling's booming voice echoed through the room.  He was standing in the threshold of the door, looking as angry as Jacob had ever seen him.  Bonnie was standing at his side, her mouth agape, at the sight of one Hardon brother mounted atop another.   

    "Well, look who's come out the guest house," Jensen sniped as he climbed off Jensen, "our long lost brother, Sterling.  And amazingly, he's not crying his eyes out."    

    "Jensen, grab a pair of jeans and go downstairs with Bonnie.  Jake and I need to have a talk in private." 

    An uneasy silence took hold of the space; Sterling, alone with Jacob, had no idea how to begin.  For the longest while, he could only stare at his younger brother.

    "Stop looking at me as though you're dad, like I've got a disease, as though I'm going to infect you and Jensen with my homosexuality." 

    "Jake, Jensen is sixteen; you're not wearing a shirt; he was in his underwear; you were sitting on his...on his..."

    "Dick.  Come on, Sterling; you can say the word.  It's not going to make you a homosexual to acknowledge another male has a penis."

    "Is that what you're trying to do?  Make Jensen a homosexual?"

    Incensed by the insinuation, Jacob was on his feet.  "Make?  Jensen already is!"

    "Has he told you that?"

    "Our kind know one another; it's like a fire in the blood.  The recognition comes in handy when we have to seek out one another on those frequent occasions the world is trying to fuck us over.  For those times when idiots like you believe that homosexuality is a choice, and that you can sit on another guy's dick and turn him over to the 'dark side'."

    "Well, if Jensen is gay, then let him come to terms with it in his own time.  You don't force it on him.  From where I was standing, that's just what you were about to do.  You were about to kiss Jensen."

    "Don't be ridiculous; he hadn't even brushed his teeth."

    "That's a flippant statement that conceals a truth.  You're a danger to him.  That man who did things..."

    "Raped, Sterling.  Not 'did things'.  He and I weren't in preschool building castles from blocks."

    "The man who raped you, Jake, desensitized you to sex.  You don't see boundaries anymore.  You see Jensen as a body, not a brother, and the same holds true for me.  Why do you think I moved out of the house?  You were making me so uncomfortable that I didn't want to be around you anymore.  Yet, had I known you lusted for Jensen in the same manner, I never would have left you alone with him.  Before, your behavior was manageable; you weren't as bad when mom and dad were alive.  But after their passing..."
    "Death," Jacob hissed.

    "You started looking at me as though I were your next meal.  I would wake up in the middle of the night to you staring down at me.  As though that weren't enough, I would find my jock and singlet had been folded differently.  You were wearing them, weren't you?"

    Bitterly, without embarrassment, Sterling answered.  "Some of us will never know what it's like to be the 6'2 uber- jock; some of us can only be the 5'8 rape victim, who puts on the captain of the wrestling team's singlet, stands in front of a mirror, imagines himself strong, gets an erection, and leaves a bit of pre-cum as a fan letter.  If you came home and Bonnie was wearing that singlet, you'd pull it down, turn her around, slide your cock in, and fantasize that you were fucking yourself."

    In a fury, Sterling advanced upon Jacob.  "Don't you ever mention her name in one of your perverted sentences again, you sick freak!"

    Unfazed, Jacob answered.  "Well, you are your father's son after all, nothing but rage, hatred, and name-calling.  You shouldn't cry for him, because he's alive and well; just look in the mirror, and you'll see him staring you down.."

    Sterling seemed to become ashamed at having lost control.  He crossed to the bed, sat down, and put his face in his hands.  Jacob sat beside his grieving brother and stared silently at him.

    "When did we lose you, Jake?" Sterling's hazel eyes once again locked with his younger brother's.  Tears were welling behind them, giving sincerity to their incomprehension.

    "I'm not lost, Sterling; I'm right here.  Home, sweet, home, in my brother's bed."

    "You know what I mean.  At what point did you stop being the annoying kid who couldn't wait to audition for the next high school musical?  The one who went around singing show tunes every night?  When did you become a bitter, friendless teenager who can't form a sentence that is free of a swear word or a reference to sex?"

    Suddenly weary, Jacob stood and moved away from the bed.  "You're not an idiot, Sterling; you can figure that one out."  

    "Not to sound cruel, but he's not here, Jake, the man who raped and you.  He's locked away, and the best of you is in that cell with him.  Don't you think it's time you reclaimed it?" 

    "You mean go around, start blissfully singing show tunes again, and broadcast my desire to be beaten in a back alley?  Sterling, I've been beaten enough; no encored needed."  

    "You don't want to go back to being who you were; fine, I can live with that, but you're going to stop punishing Jensen and I for what happened to you.  No one in this family made you go out that night."

    "You're wrong; our dearly departed father had a great deal to do with it.  All the disappointed and angry glances he shot my way along with the conversations with mom in which he asked 'Why can't Jacob be more like Sterling?  Where did we go wrong?' When that kid called in a terror, begging to be rescued, I saw my chance to prove myself.  I was going to show our old man that 'homosexual' and 'weak' weren't synonymous.  In the end, I just proved him right, didn't I?"

      "Jake, these are weighty issues that you shouldn't be handling on your own; you should go back into counseling." 

     Jacob bristled at the word.  "Counseling is done by fucked up people who obsess over the problems of others in the hope their own won't seem so bad at the end of the day.  Sterling, it's not me you should be worried about; it's our little brother.  Didn't you notice the black hair and the eyeliner?  When they sleep in their liner, you know those little Goth children have truly gone to the devil.  Our little prep sibling has burned all his polo shirts; it's most assuredly a crisis of faith.  He needs you; I don't." Abruptly, Jacob moved towards the bedroom door.  

    "Where are you going?"
    "To the beach and then to see Tyler."

    "Are the two of you..."
    "We'll make a deal, big brother; I'll stay out of your wrestling singlet, and you stay out of my sex life."

     "Jake, if you're having sex..."

     "Don't worry; I buy only the biggest and best condoms money can buy."
     With those words, Jacob left the room and bounded down the stairs.  As he passed the living room, Jensen yelled for him to stop.  Jacob answered the summons, peering around the corner to see the youngest Hardon with a phone in his hand.

     "Jake, it's an official from the prison; she's demanding to speak to mom or dad."

     Jacob raced across the room, grabbed the phone, and spoke curtly.  "This is Jacob Hardon; my parents are dead.  You can relay the message you had for them to me." 

     "Mr. Hardon, this phone call concerns Nero Caligula..."

       "Has he escaped?  Have you fucking inept people let him slip away so that he can rape more children?  So that he can come after me and finish what he started?"
     "No, he was found dead in his cell this morning."

     "One of the other prisoners murdered the mother fucker didn't they?  How did they do it?  A broken broomstick up his ass after de-balling him?  Decapitation perhaps?"

      "It was a brain aneurysm, Mr. Hardon." 

     "He died without any pain?  Without having to suffer?  After only having spent a few lousy months in jail?  He was what, thirty-five?  He should have spent the next sixty years of his life behind bars!  Fucking fucked-up universe!"
     Jacob Hardon threw the phone against the wall, and it shattered with the impact.

     "Jake, the bastard is burning in Hell now.  He's getting what he deserves."

     Jacob turned on his younger brother in a fury.  "What the fuck do you know about what that man deserves?  Were you the one he raped?  Were you the one he pissed inside for laughs?  Who are you?  Some sissy boy who think he's strong because he's garbed himself in black and listens to 'My Chemical Romance'?  Some momma's boy who can't get over her death?"  

     "Jake, lay off him!" With the sound of the phone crashing against the wall, Sterling had bounded down the stairs, but not even he could pull Jacob's fangs from Jensen's throat.    

     "You weakling, maybe you think that being in mourning for the rest of your life, somewhere along the way mom or dad will leap out of their graves and come comfort their poor, helpless infant!"  

     In a flash, Jensen hit Jacob, but being in the midst of an adrenaline-fueled rage, he swiftly recovered, and felled Jensen in a single blow.  Jacob would have continued the assault had Sterling not locked his arms around his waist and pulled him from the room. 

     "Jake, calm down!" 

     Yet, Jacob would not be stilled.  He thrashed about wildly, trying to break Sterling's hold to no avail.

      "Let go of me!" The more Jacob struggled unsuccessfully, the closer a growing terror came to devouring him.  Time was bending backward; the willfully repressed thoughts of his rape were cutting like daggers into his reality.  It was no longer his brother who held him, but instead Dr. Nero Caligula.  He kept fighting to break free, but he wasn't strong enough.  No matter how much he struggled, in the end, he was going to prove too weak, and this man was going to rape him.  Panic ensued; a deluge of tears began to pour down Jacob Hardon's face, and it became almost impossible for him to breathe.  

      Bonnie, who had helped Jensen to his feet, ran into the foyer, saw the signs of hyperventilation, and called out for Sterling to release Jacob.  "Sterling, he's having a flashback; let him go!"

      "Oh, God, I didn't think.  Jake, I'm..." He never finished the thought, for as soon as Jacob Hardon's feet were on solid ground, he spun, grabbed a large vase from a nearby table, and smashed it against his brother's left temple.  Before Sterling had fallen unconscious to the floor, Jacob Hardon was out the door, fleeing a home to which he knew he could never return.    

      Jacob didn't stop running until he met the ocean, which wouldn't allow him to run any further.  The memories of the sexual assaults were crashing over him.  He felt unclean, as though Nero Caligula had just had his way with him.  He began to toss off his clothes and didn't stop until all that remained were his briefs.  He then dove into the turbulent ocean, only to have it reject him.  A massive wave took aim at his small frame and pitched him back onto the beach, where  Jacob Hardon wept uncontrollably for the loss of his innocence, his family, and his home.   

     "No, Sterling, I haven't seen him, but I'm asking you to hold off on calling the police.  It's only been a couple of hours, and if you report him missing, social services is going to get involved, and you don't need them on your backs.  The only reason they've left you alone thus far is because your parents left you a ton of money, and you're all honor students with no history of trouble or truancy.  But given half a chance, they'd come in and take control of your finances and lives.  Jacob doesn't need anymore subversively controlling adults in his life.  As for where you stand with him, stop beating up on yourself.  It was a wrestler's instinct to grab him the way you did; you couldn't have known it would trigger a flashback.  Jacob hasn't really ever dealt with what he's been through; he's just put up this 'man of steel' persona, as though nothing occurred.  Maybe your actions will force him to confront his demons.  Look, I'm going to let you go and try his cell; I promise to call if I get a hold of him."

     Just then, a knock sounded on Tyler Young's front door.

     "Wait, Sterling, someone is here now; it might be Jacob." Tyler looked through the oculus, and it was indeed his boyfriend, waiting to be admitted.  "Yeah, Sterling, it's him."
     "Make sure he stays there; I'm on my way over.  Tell him I'm going to make everything right with him." 

     Tyler flipped his phone shut and opened the door.  

     "I've fucked up, Tyler; oh God, I've fucked up so badly.  I can never go home again." Jacob went to move past Tyler, but Tyler grabbed his wrist and held him.   

     "Jacob, you haven't fucked up.  You've been through Hell, and we've all been waiting for you to acknowledge that something, anything, was done to you.  Confronting the past is part of overcoming it.  You've repressed it in for so long that it was bound to come out violently.  As for all this talk about you not being able to go home, put it from your mind.  Sterling feels horrible about restraining you the way he did; he wasn't thinking; the action was pure instinct.  He's coming here to make everything right with you."

     "Can we go lie down until then?  I'm exhausted."

     "Yeah, my mother is at work, so we won't be disturbed until Sterling gets here."

     "Oh, I'll need to borrow a pair of shorts; I sort of took a flying leap into the ocean in my briefs and had to toss them before I put on my jeans."

     "A flying leap into the ocean?"
     "More of a suicidal attempt at drowning, but a 'flying leap' makes it sound a lot less traumatic to a worry-prone boyfriend."
     "Jacob Hardon, I don't worry; I live in terror of the drama you are going to enact in your life.  Don't tell me anymore; just let me get the shorts, so that I can wrap my arms around you, and thank God that you made it safely to my door."

     Five minutes later, and the two young men were lying in bed, with Jacob already asleep.  An undefined amount of time passed before knocking at the front door summoned him back to reality.  

     "Jacob, Sterling's here," Tyler whispered, as he gently shook his boyfriend to consciousness.

     Groggily, Jacob answered.  "Go let him in."

     "Sorry, Jacob, this one is all yours.  You and he have a lot to discuss; I'll wait in here until it's all sorted."

     "Tyler, you've been through everything with me.  My friend before the rape, my boyfriend afterward.  You don't have to exclude yourself."

     "I appreciate those words, but this is strictly a family matter.  Now, get out there and let that hot brother of yours in before the neighbors think I'm running a brothel."     

     "You're loopy, and I love you for it." Jacob kissed Tyler and hurried to the front door.  

     Seconds later, he was standing face to face with his older brother, who had a pronounced cut on the side of his head.

     "Sterling, I'm sorry I hit you; I wasn't in my right mind." 

     "Jake, it's cool." A smile slipped across Sterling's face.  "Being a wrestler; I'm accustomed to physical violence; it comes with the territory."
     "And Jensen?  I'd wager he's not as forgiving...despite the fact that he did hit me first."     

     "He'll get over it.  The two of you, though neither will admit it, are just alike:  hot-headed, willful, and set in your ways.  I think if you sat down with one another and really talked, as opposed to screaming, you'd become the best of friends."

     "I promise, Sterling; I'll make the effort.  I'll go home right now, apologize, and make everything right with him."

     "I'm all for that, but Jensen said he was going to hang out with some friends and wouldn't be home until tonight."

     Jacob didn't attempt to masque his concern.  "The stuck-up, preppy friends he had up until a few weeks ago or his misanthropic, Goth come-lately, 'we've got rage issues' friends neither you or I have met?"

     "Truthfully, I didn't ask; after all the chaos, he needed to get out of the house in a bad way, so I didn't give him the third degree."
     "Sterling, I'm worried about him, and I've been such a bastard in..."

     "Jake, we've all been out of sorts, not one among us acting like ourselves since mom and dad died.  I'm just as culpable, if not more so, in allowing Jensen to wander down a dark path.  All I can say is that tomorrow we, as a family, can be begin to forge a new path for ourselves." 

     "What if tomorrow is too late?  Sterling, not long ago I was a prisoner in a world wherein I lost both you and Jensen in a single night.  What if we can't undo the damage I've done?  What if my actions create a domino effect that..."

     Sterling pulled his younger sibling close.  Enthralled by the embrace, Jacob closed his eyes and rested his head on Sterling's chest.  The steady, persistent rhythm of his brother's heart lulled Jacob into a repose; the strength of Sterling's arms calmed every frayed nerve in his body.  Jacob wanted to say, "Sterling, you feel like home; I want us to stay like this forever, and for you to protect me from the world, and anyone who would ever do me harm." 

     Yet, Jacob knew the words could not, should not, come.

     As Sterling slowly pulled away from the embrace, Jacob opened his eyes to see Tyler standing beneath the threshold of his bedroom door.  The look on his face intermingled consternation, sadness, and resignation.  

     "I've got to jet now, Jake; there's a wrestling scrimmage tonight at school.  I should be home around eleven; Jensen's curfew is the same time; the three of us, we'll sit down, have a talk, and set everything right."

     "That sounds great, Sterling.  I'll be at the meet tonight, cheering you on."

     Once his older brother had left, Jacob was left alone with Tyler.

     "You do realize that he's playing Ashley Wilkes to your Scarlett O' Hara." There was a cold, slight bitterness to Tyler's voice as he spoke.  

     "What do you mean?"

     "As much as you want him to be, he could never be your passion, the great love of your life."
     "Are you jealous of my brother?"
     "No, towards him I am indifferent, but for you, when you are with him, I am inclined to feel pity, and thus, sadness, for the man I love."

     "If you loved me, you'd sense that I don't need this conversation right now."

     "No, you need it more than ever.  Tonight, you're going to have a telling of truths with your family.  Don't you feel I'm owed the same level of openness?"

     "How am I not being open with you, Tyler?"

     "I saw your face when Sterling was holding you.  You were his, Jacob; every part of you belong to him.  If I could leave my body, and watch as I was holding you, I don't believe I would see the same level of contentment."

     "Tyler..."

     A look that dared a challenge silenced the false disavowal.  

     "What do I have to do, Jacob?  Pump some iron?  Put on a wrestling singlet?  Go out for the team?"

     Feeling as though the few feet between them were a thousand mile chasm, Jacob went to Tyler and took his hands in his own.  "Tyler, I wouldn't be with you if I was unsatisfied.  I'm too strong-willed to settle for second best.  I love you intensely.  When you're away from me for five minutes, and you come back into the room, I'm startled at how beautiful you are.  Your black hair, pale skin, and green eyes; you're the most unearthly man I've ever seen."

     "So you love me because you have some sort of Anne Rice 'Louis the Vampire' fetish?"

     "No, I love you because you're you; I don't want you to be anyone else, Sterling not excluded."

     "I wouldn't be him, even if it meant losing you.  And if you want to be with me, when you're with me, you're mine.  Not one part of you will be his, and if I sense it is, then I'm sending you home.  That starts tonight.  This was supposed to be our evening to be together, to bake cookies, to laugh and watch a movie, but none of that is going to occur now."
     "Tyler, I..."

     "No, Jacob, you wouldn't be here.  Your thoughts would be off with Sterling and the wrestling meet.  I don't want your husk; I want your soul undivided by loyalties.  Come back tomorrow, and we can try again."  

     "Tyler, this is..."
     "Honesty.  Truth.  The hallmarks of a good, strong relationship.  Now kiss me, and go watch those hot boys in spandex hump one another."

     The two young men kissed, and for Jacob, it was an affirmation that he lacked nothing in the relationship.  There wasn't an absence of passion or longing; all his needs were fulfilled, and Tyler was open-minded enough to let him go and chase a fantasy that both knew would never come to fruition.  

      "I love you, Tyler."

      "I love you, Jacob."

     It was dusk by the time Jacob Hardon arrived to find the front door of his home ajar.  He entered to discover it had been ransacked; chairs were overturned, wall hangings had been tossed to the floor; everything was in disarray.  Yet, his immediate thoughts were far from the extensive damage the property had suffered.

     "Sterling!" Jacob raced through the house, but there wasn't a trace of his elder brother.  Jensen, he knew, was safe with friends, but he couldn't be sure if Sterling had gone straight to school from Tyler's house or if he had come home beforehand.  If the latter had occurred, he might have stumbled upon the intruders and confronted them.  Had he done so and not become their victim, Sterling would have called Jacob to inform him of the break in; the police would have gotten involved; they would be there now.  

     In a near panic, Jacob dialed his brother's cell.

     "Jacob Hardon," a raspy-voiced male answered.

      "Who is this?"

     "Satan's child.  One among Lucifer's brood.  In His unholy name, we have seized your brothers."

     Jacob nearly collapsed.  His thoughts tore back to the memory of Brantley McClure abducting Jensen.  To that threat, Jacob had responded with venom and impulsiveness, and his rash behavior had cost both Jensen and Sterling their lives.  Consequently, in this instance, Jacob could not summon an ounce of rebellion.

     "What do you want from me?"

     "There is a black Hummer pulling up to your front door.  Open the trunk, and get in."
     "First, promise if I do as you ask that no harm will come to my brothers."

     "Death is the only promise that life offers; be it tonight or decades hence, you and your brothers shall be delivered unto Lucifer, the one true god.  For Jensen and Sterling, it shall be within the hour should you not do as commanded."

     Jacob had no recourse but to obey.  He crawled into the Hummer, shut the door, and was enveloped by complete darkness.    

     "What do I do now?"
     The reply came in a terrifying monosyllable.

     "Die!"

     A hissing sound, emanating from multiple points within the chamber, quickened Jacob's heart.  His breathing became labored, until the struggle for air became an impossible one.  Then, as nearly as it had begun, Jacob Hardon's resistance met with an end.  He succumbed to the gas and lay helpless at the mercy of a Satanic cult.

     Consciousness and a wrenching nausea were forced upon Jacob.  His green eyes shot open to the sight of an underground cavern, lit by torches, in which approximately twenty black-robed and hooded individuals stood.  On the furthest edge of his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Jensen.  His brother's pale blue eyes were streaked from crying with black eyeliner.

     "Jensen, have they hurt you in any way?"
     "No, Jake; they haven't.  But Sterling..." With the mention of his older brother's name, Jensen looked past Jacob.  "I don't know what they've done to him."

     Jacob followed Jensen's eyes, and turned to see Sterling lying motionless upon a stone altar.  He was wearing his wrestling singlet, which was unnatural, because he had never made it to the meet.  Someone had purposefully put him in it, but Jacob's thought were far from discerning the motivation.  His immediate thoughts were with his older brother, whose pulse was so weak that it could barely sustain life.  

     "What the hell have you done to Sterling?  Why have you brought us here?"  

     One of the hooded men stepped forward to answer.  "Your brother has been injected with a serum that binds his soul at the nexus of Life and Death.  Unto which of these realms he is cast is a choice left unto you."

     "You wasted your time in abducing us if you thought I was going to say 'Death'."

     The leader of the cult gestured to two of his subordinates, who swiftly grabbed Jensen.  "The choice has been made.  Cut out his heart."

     "No!" Jacob moved towards Jensen, but a group of cultist intercepted him.  

     "Why the volatile reaction, Jacob?  Did I neglect to mention that only one of your brothers is leaving this hall alive tonight?"

     "If one of us has to die, it's going to be me."

     "Foolish boy, you have been tried and found guilty; the death of one of your brothers is your sentence.  It cannot be commuted.  You will choose one, or both will die."

     "I've been found guilty?  Of what crime?"

     "For the murder of our brother, Nero Caligula."

     Jacob, at first, was too stunned to speak, but when words came, they cracked with indignation.  "You think I murdered that bastard?  That fucker died in his sleep; one second, in prison for life, the next, he's been given a one-way ticket to freedom.  He got off easy compared to what I would have done to him.  As for my having to be punished, I've already been raped, tortured, and psychologically lobotomized by that maniac."  

     "Nero was performing our Lord's work, offering young men as sacrificial lambs to Satan, raping others so that His Darkness could infect their souls.  Those children would have grown up to be evil, rage-filled men who would have done great work against those who served the false god of Light.  You interfered in Nero's devotions to Satan; you seduced our brother away from his work.  Satan calls for vengeance, and it shall be meted out.  The loss of our brother's life, shall be avenged by the loss of one of yours.  Blood for blood!  Now, choose between them, or both shall die!"

     "I won't..." Jacob started to protest, but he was cut short.

     "One!" The cult leader shouted.  "If I get to three, both shall join our brother, Nero, in death!"

     Jacob's thoughts went into a panicked overdrive.  With Jensen, there was constant bickering; Jacob knew if he chose to save his younger brother, the first argument they entered into would make him regret sacrificing Sterling.  Yet, Sterling had said he and Jensen were so much alike; if Jacob made the effort, the two might become intimate friends.  Jacob was certain Jensen was gay; he could become his mentor and guide him on his path.

     "Two!"   
     So much alike; yes, there was the key.  So much alike in that they both had seen too much of the world.  Jensen was going to become just like him, and because Jacob Hardon hated what he had become, he could not allow his younger brother to descend into that circle of Hell.  Yes, it would be a mercy to end it now.  

     "Thr..."

     "Jensen!  Take Jensen!" The words shot from Jacob's mouth as a guttural cry.  They were echoed by a low, sickening moan from Jensen.  A hail of silent tears convulsed from the youngest Hardon Brother's eyes as a group of the cultists began to drag him from the room.  He didn't protest, for that would have indicated that he put his life above Sterling's, and more than anything, he loved his eldest brother.  Out of respect for that love, Jensen went to his death as a lamb.   

     For all his indomitable will, not even Jacob could withstand to look upon it.  He turned, leaned over Sterling's body, so that his head rested on his brother's abdomen, and shut his eyes in effort to block all memory of Jensen being led to his death.

     "Will you understand, Sterling, or will you look upon me with loathing?  How will I ever tell you that I killed Jensen out of love for you?"

     Then, it seemed those would be the last words Jacob would ever speak.  Violently, a pair of cultists was upon him, slipping a leather hood over his head, and pulling back forcefully, so that a slow process of suffocation began.  Perhaps the leader had reconsidered, and was killing him and allowing Jensen to live.  As a fatal darkness overtook him, Jacob Hardon could only hope the universe would prove itself so just.  

    Awakening, he prayed it had all been a nightmare.  Perhaps he was still in Nero Caligula's lab, the victim of another virtual reality mind fuck.  If being the continued object of that sadist's rape and torture preserved his younger brother's life, then Jacob would welcome it.  However, with one glance around his trashed bedroom, Jacob knew the events of the previous night had been all too real.  He turned to Sterling, who was lying on the bed, and gently began to shake him. 

    Groggily, the eyes of the eldest Hardon brother opened, and he began to move.  

     "Sterling, thank God, you're alive," Jacob whispered as he embraced his elder sibling.

    Sterling pushed Jacob away, sat up in bed, and looked down at his wrestling singlet.

    "Why am I wearing this?"

    "How much of last night do you remember?"

    "Last night?  Nothing."

    "The serum the Satanists used, it must have effected your memory.  Get dressed; we'll go to the emergency room."

    Jacob started to rise from the bed, but Sterling grabbed his wrist and looked at him desperately.

    "No, you don't understand.  I don't remember anything, not who you are, not who I am.  Everything is gone."

      Hours later, still waiting as the doctors examined his brother, Jacob was being interviewed by a police officer.

      "So you have no idea who they were other than that they claimed to be Satanists?"
      "None whatsoever."
      "You can't provide a physical description of any of the men?"
      "Other than the fact that they were all wearing hoods and of normal adult height?  No."
      "As for the manner of your abduction, you were asked to get into a black Hummer and then gassed into unconsciousness?"
      "Yes."

      "So you have no sense of where they took you, except that it was underground?"
      "Correct."
      "Did you witness your brother's death?"

      "No, they said they were going to cut out Jensen's heart and then took him away."

      "Your older brother was the only other witness to..."

      "He wasn't a witness; he was unconscious.  He doesn't remember anything; whatever drug the Satanists gave him made him an amnesiac."

      "Satanists, bat caves, memory-erasing toxins, and a Hummer with blacked-out windows and a gas chamber.  This is all sounding a bit far-fetched."

      Jacob had no tolerance for condescension and reacted accordingly.  "I bet you thought it was far-fetched when I was being held by a psychopath who had invented a mind-altering device that turned me into a sex slave!  I bet if someone who knew the truth of that situation had tipped your department off, they would have been laughed out of the building!  If you don't believe me, I'll call the F.B.I., who captured that psychopath in the first place, and inform them that the local constabulary are too impotent in their imaginations to believe that a person like Nero Caligula actually existed!  Now, if you have anything else to say to me, you're damn well going to say it in the presence of my attorney."

     With those, Jacob stormed down the hall, but the officer, voice raised yet icily controlled, countered.    

      "You don't blow off law enforcement that easily, son."

      His voice quaking with a barely restrained fury, Jacob turned.  "First, I have no intention of blowing you or anyone in your department.  The cum of arrogant corrupters of authority has always been distasteful to me.  Secondly, you'll have to pardon my lack of patience, but one of my brothers was murdered last night; the other is in this hospital with catastrophic memory loss and God only knows what other injuries.  I've wasted enough time with you and your ignorant suspicions.  If you want to speak to me in the future, I'll make a point not to leave town and to be at my home address, which you have been provided."

     Two nurses walking by ended the brief, tense silence that followed this remark.

     "Have you been able to locate any of Mr. Young's immediate family?"

     "No, his mother was a single parent, and she was d.o.a. at the crime scene, heart cut out of her chest and missing."

     With a terror-stricken countenance, Jacob advanced upon them.  "Young?  Surely, you don't mean Tyler Young."    

     "Yes, are you a member of his family?"

     "No, I'm his boyfriend.  What's happened to him."

     "We're only supposed to release information to..."
     "He doesn't have any goddamn family!  His father is fuck knows where, and if his mother is dead, then I'm all he's got!"

     The nurses looked at one another with hesitation, but eventually relented.  "Mr. Young was brought in early this morning with severe head trauma."
      "Oh, God." The weight of the previous night's events bore down upon Jacob; yet, he pushed them all back, subjugating the memories in the manner he had subjugated his rape.  He turned to the police officer and barked a command.  "You have to make certain Tyler is guarded at all hours.  If the cultists discover he's alive, they'll return to finish what they started."
      "I presume you mean the Satanists," the guard questioned snidely.

      "Yes, the goddamn, mother-fucking Satanists!  How many more people have to die or come near to dying before you take me seriously?"

     In the silence that followed the explosion, one of the nurses stated quietly.  "There were three other assaults similar to Mr. Young's last night.  Like Mr. Young's mother, the victims were all missing their hearts."  

     "Let me guess," Jacob ventured.  "The Edwards family."
     "How did you know?"
     "Bonnie Edwards was my brother's girlfriend.  The cultists were obviously targeting anyone with an emotional connection to our family .  It's a mercy that Sterling has lost his memory; coming so soon after our parent's death, this would kill him."

     "What would kill me?" Jacob turned at the familiar voice and saw his brother, along with a physician, standing a few feet distant.

     "It doesn't matter right now, Sterling; I'll tell you when we get home, because, as it seems, all roads leading to Hell intersect in this corridor, and I'm anxious to get the fuck out of here.  Now, everyone listen; I'm going to start firing questions, and I want them to be answered as succinctly as possible.  First, what is Tyler's prognosis?"

     "Mr. Young is on life support and has all the indications of severe brain damage.  In all likelihood, he will never regain consciousness."
     Jacob wanted to collapse, but he knew, for Sterling's sake, he had to remain strong.  He couldn't endure to see Tyler lying in a hospital bed, beaten beyond recognition.  "Give me 72 hours, and I will make the decision to end his life support.  I ask that you wait, because I want to be with him, and I can't face letting him go right now." Next, Jacob turned to the physician at Sterling's side.  "What is occurring with my brother?  Is his memory loss permanent?  Were there any side effects from the serum the cultists gave him?"
     "Physically, there's nothing wrong with Sterling, and there isn't a trace of any known toxin in his bloodstream.  As for the memory loss, no concussive trauma having been suffered, we are at a loss to explain it.  His motor reflexes are still imprinted, meaning he instinctively knows how to eat or tie his shoes, but all sense of identity has been lost.  Your brother is, for all intents and purposes, a blank slate.  We can offer no diagnosis or treatment, except to tell you to take him home and perhaps the familiar surroundings will trigger recognition."
     Jacob moved beyond his brother and then turned back to him.  "Come on, Sterling, let me take you home and tell you who you were and what we've both lost."

     "What I don't understand," pondered Jacob, now seated on Sterling's bed, "is why the cultists went after Tyler and Bonnie.  They said my punishment was the death of one of my brothers.  Why kill your girlfriend, my boyfriend, and their respective families?  It makes no sense."
     "I may not remember who I am, but I have enough sense left to surmise that Satanists aren't inherently trustworthy individuals."

     "But you are here, and if they wanted to destroy me, why not kill you as well?  Why hold to their word at all?"

     "Obviously, they didn't take into account that I would lose my memory.  With mom, dad, Bonnie, and Jensen dead, had I not gotten amnesia, I would be a suicidal wreck right now.  The Satanists wanted us to live, because they knew our existences would be a torment without our loved ones."

     Jacob buried his face in his hands and sighed.  "I suppose you're right.  I just can't bring myself to think of it anymore; I'm mentally and physically exhausted.  I just want to lie down, sleep, and face all this tomorrow."
     "I'm tired as well, but I'm on edge because sleep is a defenseless state.  Perhaps, in the interest of self preservation, you and I should share a bed tonight."

     At any other time, those words might have ushered Jacob Hardon down a path of ecstasy, but the complete and total exhaustion that gripped him permitted only quiet acquiescence.  "That's a good idea, Sterling; we'll both be safer that way."

     Two minutes later, Jacob had stripped down to his briefs and Sterling to his boxer briefs.  Jacob got into bed, and faced away from his older brother, allowing for a great deal of space between their bodies on the king-sized bed.  Within seconds of closing his eyes, Jacob felt a tide of sleep washing over him, and with the tide came warmth and strength.  Sterling had crossed the chasm and had wrapped his body around his brother's.  

     "The nearer we are to one another, the safer we'll be."

     And indeed, as Jacob Hardon slipped into unconsciousness, he had never felt more secure in his life.  

     Jacob woke to the sense of something being very wrong.  He went to move, but his body was fixed in place.  In terror, his eyes shot open, and he saw shackles around his wrists and ankles.       

     "Every now and then, Jacob, who'll never be the boy he's always wanted to be, you get a little bit helpless, and you're lying like a child in my arms." Sterling, facing away from him, was standing at the end of the bed.  His voice was menacing, each syllable cutting open a scar in Jacob's soul that hadn't begun to properly heal.  

     "Sterling, what's wrong?  What have they done to you?"     

     "Every now and then, Jacob, I fall apart." Sterling turned.  There was a crazed look about him, made more pronounced by the dagger he wielded.  As he advanced upon Jacob, the refrain continued.  "And I need you now tonight, and I need you more than ever.  And if you only hold me tight, we'll be holding on forever." 

     With those words and the sudden recollection of their placement in his life, terror overtook Jacob.  Nero Caligula had made a video of his rape and torture, and, as though their relationship had been some great love affair, it was set to "Total Eclipse of the Heart".    

     Believing his brother to be the victim of brainwashing, Jacob attempted to break the conditioning.  "Sterling, you're not him!  Fight what they've done to you!  Think of mom and dad!  Of Bonnie!  Of Jensen!" Tears were pouring from Jacob's eyes; his voice was breaking with terror.  

     "Every now and then you get a little bit terrified...." Sterling was beside Jacob now, staring down at him, running the blade of the dagger across his right inner thigh.  "And every now and then I get a little bit angry, and I know I've got to fucking make you cry." 

     The steel sliced through flesh, and Jacob screamed in agony.  

     "Ah, the music of your soul that I have so long been without."

     "Sterling!"
     "I'm not your goddamned brother!  When you sentenced Jensen to be murdered, the decision indicated Sterling was dearest to you.  Why, as punishment, would my brethren take the brother you loved least?  No, they took the one you loved most and made him a vessel for my soul.  And what a vessel it is!  It's not a weak body like Jensen's, which is the body we were praying to Lucifer you would not choose.  Why do you suppose my brethren dressed Sterling in his wrestling gear before placing him on that altar?  No matter how far you think you've come, Jacob Hardon, you're still my cum-crazed whore child.  You saw your brother's penis beneath a skin tight singlet and chose to murder Jensen in order to keep that sizeable bit of flesh in this world.  You should be relieved that your true self is so close to the surface; it means I won't have to do much to transform you back into the lap boy whose sole goal was swallowing a hot load."

     "You sick fucker, I'll never be that thing again!"
     "You don't have any choice in the matter, Jacob.  Your mind isn't yours; it's mine, and deep inside you know it.  You're the weakest you've ever been because everything you love has been taken from you.  I crept out last night while you slept, and I beat the brains out of your boyfriend.  You should have seen the look on his face when he saw Sterling at his door; his first thought was that something was wrong with you.  This was confirmed when I told him that you had killed yourself because you had come on to me, and I had rejected you.  Next, the beating began, and I have to admit, it was one of my finest pieces of work.  Tyler's instincts told him not to fight your brother, and by the time he could have fought, well, his brains were all over the walls."
     "You mother fucker!"
     "Dearest Jacob, your nasty words are your only strength, and they can't save you now.  You're left with nothing; everything you've touched or loved has met with death.  With all you've lost, your mind is going to implode when I start raping you with your brother's body.  No, perhaps not the first time, maybe not even the second or third, but I'm going to leave you tied to this bed and keep raping you until you break.  I'm not going to feed you; I'm going to deprive you of sleep; I'm going to torture and bleed you; all this you'll experience while lying in your own feces.  Eventually, you'll go into shock, and your mind will kick into survival mode.  That beautiful word, 'cum', will pour from your lips, and I, with Sterling's eighteen-year old cock, will only be more than happy to oblige your thirst.  So, Jacob Hardon, whether you like it or not, our forever is going to start tonight."

     Nero Caligula arose from the bed, stripped his stolen body, and stood naked, with a raging ten-inch erection.  He then went to the shackles that bound Jacob's ankles and unfastened them.  Jacob's first instinct was to kick violently at his assailant, but it was no avail.  The strength of Sterling's body was too great for him; his brother was upon him in an instant, ripping off his underwear, grabbing him by the thighs, lifting him off the bed, and slamming bareback into him.  

     As Jacob screamed in agony, Sterling smiled the words,  "You know this is what you've always wanted, your brother inside you.  You can feel your mind slipping away from you.  Stop fighting it!  Let go, and you and Sterling can be together for the rest of your lives!"

     Jacob knew it wasn't his mind that was on the verge of breaking.  During his initial torture, Nero Caligula had inserted small knives inside of him, the desired effect being to create anal fissures which would bleed during intercourse.  Blood was a fetish for Nero; it turned him on like nothing else.  Jacob could feel the blood pouring out in torrents, and he knew instinctively that he was hemorrhaging. 

     "I'm bleeding to death!"

     "You said that quite frequently a few months back, and you're alive today, aren't you?  You'll still be alive in an hour when I, do this to you again!"

     As Jacob screamed, a clap of thunder exploded in the room, and Sterling collapsed down upon him.  Standing in the threshold of the door, wielding a discharged gun, was Jensen Hardon.

     "Jensen, how...?"

     "Jake, there's no time to explain," the youngest Hardon said as he rushed across the room.  "There's blood everywhere; I have to call an ambulance."  Seconds later, he was speaking with a 911 dispatcher.  "I can't stay on the phone!  Just get someone over here!" Violently, Jensen slammed down the receiver, went to the end of the bed, stood on it, and, with some difficulty, pulled Sterling's body out and away from his brother's.  Yet, the separation of the two bodies resulted in the the breaking of a dam that held back the river of Jacob's blood.  It was gushing out in torrents.    

     "Oh, God, Jake.  How do I stop the bleeding?"

     Weakly, barely conscious, Jacob replied, "Just undo the shackles; I'll..." Then, he was gone.

     "Jake!" In a panic, Jensen realized he should be searching for a means to free his brother before the ambulance arrived.  "The key.  Where's the damn key?"

     "Between your legs." 
     Sterling's fist, the end of the shackle key protruding between the space of two fingers, slammed upward into Jensen's balls, nearly rupturing them.  As Jensen went to his knees, Sterling grabbed him by his hair, and slammed his forehead into the edge of a marble-topped nightstand.  Blood gushed from the cut, streaming into Jensen's eyes, partially blinding him.  He could offer no resistance as Sterling forced him down onto his stomach, and ripped his jeans off.  Then, gravity ceased to exist, and Jensen's small-framed body was lifted from the ground and hoisted over his older brother's shoulder. 

     "You've been a very bad boy, Jensen!  You've shot me in the shoulder, and you've called the police, so there's no time to fuck you in your dying brother's blood.  Now, I've got to take my hot little piece of ass and run, but there's no reason why I can't put the time spent in running to good use." With this, Sterling slipped one of his fingers in his mouth, moistened it, and then slid it up the back of Jensen's briefs.  The youngest Hardon winced and tightened on instinct.  "Ah, you're so like your brother in the beginning.  A tight-assed virgin!  It'll be so much fun breaking you in with your big brother's big cock!"

     "You perverted fucker!" Jensen had endured enough.  He reared up and savagely sunk his teeth into Sterling's ear.  His attacker screamed in anguish and instinctively reached for the bleeding wound.  This allowed Jensen to kick off him and to run through the threshold of the bedroom door.  He was on the landing of the stairs when Sterling grabbed him by the back of his shirt, whirled him around, and struck him, full force, across the face.  Jensen went down, and was barely conscious as Sterling lorded over him.

     "Seeing you helpless like this, it makes me want to rape you right now.  I have to have a taste!" Sterling kneeled, lowered the front of Jensen's briefs, and a sick smile lit across his face.  "Puberty hasn't kind to you, has it?  Despite that bad dye job, it's apparent you're a natural blonde, and those recessive traits just don't come through when it comes to penis size.  If you didn't have pubic hair, that dick of yours would pass for a little boy's.  Before I rape you, I'll have to give you a nice shave, and pretend, won't I?"  He lowered, and fixed his mouth briefly to Jensen's dick.  "How does it feel knowing the first mouth to suck your cock is that of your heterosexual, holier than thou, brother?"

     In reply, Jensen jerked his right knee forward and slammed it into the bottom of Sterling's jaw.  The impact caused the eldest Hardon to bite down and to nearly split his tongue.  Blood began to gush from his mouth, pouring all over Jensen, who took full advantage of the situation.  In a flash, he was on his feet, but Sterling, though wounded, was faster.  He grabbed Jensen by an ankle, tripped him, lifted him off the floor, hoisted him over his head, and hurled him from the second story landing.  Thirty feet below, a glass table shattered as Jensen's body careened into it.  The back of his head slammed against the hardwood floor, causing a concussion and loss of consciousness.

    Sirens were audible by the time Sterling made it to Jensen's body; unhurriedly, he grabbed Jensen by the hair and dragged him towards the front door.  Nero Caligula knew he had time to escape with his prey; there was no one who was going to stop him from raping and torturing another of the Hardon boys.  Smiling through the agony of his split tongue, he threw open the door, only to find the hooded, gun-wielding leader of the Satanists standing before him. 

    "Nero Caligula, you have compromised our Lord's work.  We returned you to this world with the promise that you would take revenge on Jacob Hardon.  Yet, your reckless ritual killings have put our cause under intense scrutiny.  For this betrayal to the cause of our God, Lucifer, the punishment can only be death."

    At point blank range, a pair of bullets ripped through Sterling's heart, killing Nero Caligula and destroying any hope of Sterling's soul being restored.

    Four days later, Jacob was able to leave his hospital bed and to take Tyler's hand in his own for what he knew would be the last time.  "The doctors say there's nothing left of the sweet boy who made me laugh when I thought I had lost the ability.  Nothing of the boy who always calmed me when I railed.  Nothing of the boy I took for granted time and time again.  You're not a part of this horrible world any longer, and I suppose I should be thankful for that, but it's a selfish act, grieving.  I'm sitting here, and I'm thinking that not only your soul but Sterling's as well is out there, wherever 'there' may be, and I should go on some heroic mythical quest, ala Dante and his "Inferno", to reclaim you both.  Pull you back down into life, into this world of suffering and pain, from the Paradise or nothingness in which you exist.  If a rapist's soul can be bartered from Hell, then surely two good souls can be bartered from Heaven.  But whose life would have to end for such a trade to occur?  Mine?  Jensen's?  Yes, I would surrender my own, but not Jensen's.  Never again.  Tyler, he fought for me; he even shot Sterling.  I think back to that night, which seems a lifetime ago, when I decided Jensen should die.  He didn't even argue, because he idolized Sterling more than I did.  Yet, he pulled that trigger out of love for me.  No, he wasn't the one who ultimately killed Sterling, but Jensen shot with the intention.  To end it.  To not allow that bastard to inhabit Sterling's body and mar his good name.  It shouldn't have taken Sterling's death to make me realize what I had in Jensen.  I just saw so much naivety in him, so much of who I was before the rape.  He made me angry, because I saw in him the potential to become the victim I had been.  I hated him because I hated myself.  Yet, that's all going to change.  From this day forth, I'm going to do right by him.  I'm going to watch over him, and I'm never going to allow anyone to take him for granted.  I'll mentor him in the hellish life our kind have to live, and both he and I are going to be survivors.  Tyler, what an idiot I've been to have let that bastard, Nero, destroy me the way he has.  To tear out my soul, to make me lust for my brothers, to yearn to rape them.  But what he's taken, and he's taken everything, there will be no more.  I'm not becoming that sex-starved man he envisioned of me.  I'm going to live in the memory of what you and I had; I'm going to hold to our love for all of my life, and it's going to sustain me for all of my years.  Thank you, Tyler Christensen, for all that you've given me and all you will continue to give me." 

      Jacob stood, kissed Tyler softly on his forehead, and then went to inform a nurse that he was ready to let Tyler go.  He couldn't bring himself to stay in the room or to hold Tyler's hand as the last bit of life ebbed from his body.  Jacob Hardon, who had always professed to be strong, was not strong enough for that.  Instead, he went into the hospital chapel, closed the door, leaned against a wall, and wept.  

      And in weeping, Jacob Hardon was assured he had a soul.  

      And wherever there is a soul, there is hope.  Yet, hope, like life, is fragile, and subject to be revoked without warning.

      So it was for Jacob Hardon when a nurse entered the chapel and quietly spoke his name.

      "Mr. Hardon, I'm sorry to disturb you, but your brother..."

      "What about Jensen?  What's happened to him?"

      "He's missing, sir."

      "Missing?  Oh, fuck, they've taken him!" Fearing the Satanists had his brother, Jacob moved to exit the room, but the nurse grabbed his wrist and halted him.

      "No, I don't believe he was abducted; there was a letter left for you." The instant the nurse produced it, Jacob ripped it from her hands.

      As he read the letter, Jacob was reminded of what Sterling had said, of how he and Jensen were just alike.  As one might react, so would the other.  Jacob himself would have set out as Jensen had if the horrors enacted upon him had not altered his perception of the world, had he still possessed some measure of naivety that what Jensen was enacting could be done without the direst of repercussions.

      Jake, I knew when you chose for Sterling to live and for me to die, that it was the right decision.  Now, you and I are all that's left of our family, but we just fight all the time, and what kind of family is that?  The cultists say they can bring Sterling's soul back to the earth.  The cost will be my life, which I don't hold in enough regard to not relinquish, when doing so will allow Sterling to live.  I love you, Jake, and I'm sorry we couldn't be closer as brothers.  Sterling will be home at twilight.  Tell him how much I loved him, but never tell that I sacrificed my life for his.    

      Of all possible endings, this was the worst.  For Jacob to lose Jensen without being able to express how much he meant to him, of having their relationship as brothers relegated to a never-ending argument.  Jensen was a child who hadn't begun to live; he didn't even have enough sense of identity to realize that his life was of value.  Jacob had failed him in the worst possible manner.  

      If it ended like this, not only would Jacob Hardon be destroyed, but Sterling would be as well.  To be pulled from death, ripped again from the souls of all those he loved, and restored to life.  As what?  As who?  Terror seized Jacob as he thought of Sterling's body, lying in the morgue, awaiting burial.  Dead five days, decomposition starting to become advanced, bullet holes through his heart.  Was that what was coming back as Sterling?  No, it couldn't; it wouldn't.  Jacob wouldn't allow that.  

      Frantically, he called the mortuary and arranged for an immediate cremation of the body.  Once it had been destroyed, the cultists wouldn't be able to bring Sterling back.  Jensen would have no choice but to come home, and Jacob could then tell his younger brother how much he valued him.  As Sterling had predicted, they would forge an unbreakable bond.  They would become private investigators, and their adventures would become legendary:  with tight-fitting outfits, witty dialogue, and world travel fueled by an inexhaustible trust fund.  

      How could Jacob have ever chosen for Jensen to die and for Sterling to live?  Tyler had been so astute in his observation that a gulf existed between Sterling and Jacob, a chasm forged of divergent longings and different life paths.  Nothing could ever have come of a relationship between the two of them.  Sitting in the living room of the Hardon home just past dusk, Jacob wondered how he could have been so foolish as to have ever believed it could.

      Then, it came, a knock at the door.  Jacob sprinted across the room, flung it open, and there stood Jensen Hardon.  Jacob threw his arms around his younger brother and held him as close and as tight as he ever held anyone.  

      "Thank God, Jensen, it's you!  I can't believe you're here and that I get to tell you how much I love you, of how much you mean to me as a brother.  I'm sorry I never said it before."

      Jacob pulled back from the embrace and stared into Jensen's eyes.  "Don't look so sad, Jensen.  What you wanted to do was noble, but can you imagine if Sterling had come back?  For me to have told him that Bonnie, her parents, and Tyler were dead, butchered by Nero Caligula, whose soul was transferred to Sterling's body, so that it was in essence they all went to their graves believing it was Sterling who had killed the three of them?  That his body had been used to rape me?  That you had sacrificed your soul for his?  Jensen, he wouldn't have been able to live for the guilt."

     With the speaking of those words, a crazed look of grief had fallen over Jensen's face.  It was so intense that a startled Jacob took a few steps backward, into the threshold of the door.  His thoughts tore back to a face in the guest house, weeping in anguish for the loss of their parents.   

     "Sterling."

     A reply was not forthcoming.  Sterling turned and began to run.  Jacob tore after him, pleading for him to stop.  

     "Sterling, you can't run from this!  It's not going to change anything!  Jensen, Bonnie, and Tyler are dead; we can't get them back!  All you and I have left is one another!"

     Sterling stopped abruptly and spun on Jacob.  "It's convenient how that worked out, isn't it?" The voice was Jensen's but morphed into a much deeper baritone.  There was a fury behind the ice blue eyes that Jacob had never before encountered.  "You did this, didn't you?  All of it!  And you're not a damn bit remorseful, because you still have one brother left to lure to bed!"

     Jacob slapped Sterling hard across his face.  "You son of a bitch, Tyler and Jensen are dead, and I would trade ten minutes with them for a lifetime with you!  You come back from the dead, and you pick up right where you left off, judging me and running away.  Sterling Hardon, the big bad wrestler whose favorite position is 'tail between legs'."

     Sterling was grinning, his expression a horrific intermingling of anger and grief.  "Sanctimonious little bitch." In a flash, his hands were around Jacob's throat; had he been in his own body and not Jensen's, his grip might have crushed Jacob's larynx.  "How the hell did this happen?  What did you do to destroy all our lives?"

     Sterling shoved Jacob backward, but Jensen's strength was not adequate to knock him to the ground.  It took Jacob a moment to collect his breath; when he spoke, his voice was defeated.  The act of Sterling assaulting him had razed the last of his willpower.  "Nero Caligula was a Satanist; because I was with Nero when we was apprehended, the cultists blamed me.  They came for revenge."
      Sterling replied with disgust, which a split second later turned to white hot rage.  "First, you blame a mind-altering device for making you lust for your brothers, and now you expect me to believe a Satanic cult just turned up out of nowhere and wanted to destroy not only your life but the lives of your family and everyone they loved?  You pathological drama queen, stop making this shit up!"

      "Fucking idiot!  You're Sterling Hardon in Jensen Hardon's body!  Who but Satanists could have put you there?" Sterling looked stricken.  "You'd actually forgotten, hadn't you?  That your soul was transferred to our younger brother's body?  You come back, return to judgmental heterosexual form, and can't be bothered to let a small thing like astral physics stand in the way of blaming me for all the world's woes."

     "Jake..."
     "I want to know what happened to the brother who took me in his arms and said each of us was going to make a concerted effort to be more of a family?  With the way you're acting, how do I know you're not Nero Caligula, come back to torment me?"

     "When did I ever take you in my arms?"

     "What's the last thing you remember before your soul got transferred to Jensen's body?"

     "I had just walked into his bedroom to find you on top of him; he was in his underwear; you were sitting on his..."

     "Dick.  Yeah, all four hard inches of it.  From the look of shock on your face, I guess you haven't taken a piss yet.  From 6'2 and ten to 5'6 and four.  Good luck finding it and some level of humanity.  Remember; you're not a ripped wrestling demigod anymore; you can't pull off being a complete asshole and still having the collective world want to blow you."

     Jacob turned to walk back towards the Hardon home, but Sterling put a hand on his shoulder and prevented him.  "Before we go home, just tell me what happened, so I can try and make some sense of all of this."

     "The Satanists kidnapped you and Jensen, took you to some lost underground set of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", and told me one of you had to die.  I tried to condemn myself, but 'no go' said the fashionably challenged game show host."
      "Can you..."
      "Relate it without the banter?  No.  Because I'd fall apart without the wordplay to buffer the absolute hell that I've endured.  Now, shut up and listen."

      Perhaps a half an hour or more later, Jacob had related the incredulous series of events to his brother.  

     "And you're certain it's over?  That the Satanists are through with us?"

   "That's what they promised Jensen, but..." Jacob paused.  He and Sterling had reached the threshold of their home, but the house was completely dark; Jacob was certain a lamp had been on when they had left.  Perhaps the bulb had blown, but he wasn't about to take a chance if it hadn't.  "Sterling, wait here, and don't come in until I tell you it's safe."

      "Jake, I..."

      "Don't argue with me!  Just stay here for thirty seconds!"

      Jacob crossed the living room in the dark and turned on a lamp.  The house was as he had left it, and it seemed safe for his brother to enter.

      "Sterling, it's..." He turned back to the threshold of the door, but Sterling had disappeared.  In his place stood the police officer who had interviewed Jacob at the hospital.

       "What the hell are you doing here?"

       "We have unfinished business."

       "Get the fuck out of this house!" When the officer did not move, Jacob rushed past him, out the door, to his brother.  There was no sign of the eldest Hardon, but upon turning back to face the officer, Jacob saw Jensen's body lying in the bushes.  "Sterling!" Jacob kneeled beside him, felt for a pulse, and mercifully, found one.  

      "Interesting how you call him by your dead brother's name.  Being so fond of the dearly departed, perhaps you'd like to reunite with him." Like lightning, the handle of the officer's revolver slammed against the side of Jacob's temple, rendering him unconscious.  

      Jacob awoke to the barrel of a gun in his face.  He instinctively lurched backward, but he had been bound to a chair and motion was not forthcoming.  The policeman leered at the sight of his fear.  

     "Well, sleeping beauty has awoken from slumber to find herself in Hell, and all the handsome princes are locked away in Heaven, where the whore can never tread."
      "What have you done to Jensen?" The words were cautious yet laced with venom.  He hadn't been careless, as he had been before, to refer to his brother as 'Sterling'.

       "He's safe...for now.  If you cooperate, he'll remain that way; if you don't, I'll make an anonymous call to a scumbag on the local sex offender registry.  He's a real pig, got of host of vd's, raped his nephews a while back, but got off on a technicality.  I can practically hear him salivating as I tell him there's a teenager bound, gagged, and helpless at your home address.  Of course, I'll arrest him afterward, been dying for a reason to do that, but your brother will not only have been raped by then, but infected with hepatitis and herpes as well." 

     Jacob's face was a masque of rage.  "And I suppose what you want in return for this maniac not raping my brother is you raping me?"

     "Fuck no!  I've got a wife and two sons at home.  I don't rape boys."

     "Of course not.  You just send pedophiles to rape other people's sons.  Maybe someone will return the favor and send a psychopath to victimize your kids."

     One of Jacob's ribs cracked with the impact of the officer's fist.  

     "You don't ever threaten my sons!"

     "I wasn't..." Another blow, another cracked rib.

     The officer moved behind Jacob, undid the shackles that bound his wrists and ankles to the chair, and dumped him onto the floor.  

     "You came into my world, disrespected me, and now you threaten my kids!"
     Jacob had to fight for the breath to reply.  "I was raped; I would never do the same to a child.  Yet, you would send a pedophile to victimize my brother.  Who among us is the monster?"

      "You are!" The officer's steel-toed boot slammed into the side of Jacob's head, almost rendering him unconscious.  Through a haze, he felt himself being drug across the floor.  "I go out each night, and I put my life on the line, putting myself between a gang and some 'shit for brains' gay kid who's wearing a feather boa in the bad part of town.  The next day, I interview you, and I get talked down to like I'm nothing.  Fucker, I'm a police officer; no one treats me like shit, and gets away with it!  There are consequences when you dick over the law!"

       The officer released his hold on Jacob and ordered him to stand.  Holding to his cracked ribs, Jacob did so with difficulty.  For the first time, he was able to get a clear vantage point of his surroundings, and all doubt of his being at the mercy of the rogue cop was obliterated.  The old abandoned mill.  No one ever came out there anymore.  It was on the verge of collapse and had been condemned.  This was the scene of a horror film from which none of the characters, save the deranged killer, got out alive.

     "You're going to look into this," the officer ordered while gesturing to a video camera that had been set up on a tripod, "and you're going to confess to killing your older brother, his girlfriend, her parents, and your boyfriend.  Then, you're going to take this," he said, producing a handgun, "and you're going to blow your brains out." 

     "I'm not going to kill myself!  I didn't do anything wrong!  Why the hell is everyone in this fucking universe trying to blame all their problems on me?  I told you; the Satanists..."