The Wanting

(photo via Pinterest)

Walter’s Wanting came fairly late in life. As far as Wanting’s go, it was quiet and unobtrusive, much like him. He woke, his head full of dreams. Skin and mouths. 

Slipping out of the bed he slept in alone, he shuffled into the kitchen to get a glass of water. He looked up from filling his cup to see his Wanting. A faint red light spilled out of the barely open barn door. Moths fluttered past the light, uninterested in its glow. No, he thought, it was just meant for him. His cup was now running over, spilling water down his hand. 

He came out from under the spell of the light and turned off the tap. Walter took big gulps of the water, hoping to quench the sick feeling that now gripped him. This couldn’t be right. He was still half-awake, his mind playing tricks.

Walter returned to bed and shut the door firmly. Laying there, he could still see the light. It crawled under the door. It reached up at his bedskirt, unable to quite climb higher. Walter shut his eyes tightly and rolled away. 

The morning came and the light was gone, as far as he could tell. He was being foolish, he thought to himself. No grown man gets his Wanting. That was kid stuff. Maybe if he was some young pup, but even back then he knew how to control himself.

His parents had been so proud he had made it through high school without a Wanting. That was extremely rare for boys. At least that’s what “they” said. His parents had a habit of only listening to “them” when it suited their needs. But in this case, he had seen it. Walter had hung around the outside of locker room chats where boys compared their Wantingmarks, bragged about how they got 'em. Most of his graduating class had the telltale bone-deep blemish somewhere on their person. No matter the color of their skin, their Wantings marked them with the same crimson color, burning bright and angry red. Walter had always wondered if it hurt, but couldn't bring himself to ask even those closest to him. His best friend Jimmy. The neighbor boy, Michael McGinnis. 

While his coffee brewed he thought back to that night. The night Michael McGinnis gave in to his Wanting. The McGinnises had lived just down the road a ways. Walter was going to bed late. He had just finished watching some show about aliens taking over the world. So he didn’t think twice when he saw the red light in the night, way off at the McGinnises. Just another strange thing to have seen. But as the gray blue tint of the T.V. wore away from his mind, he realized what was happening. He stood at his window, the same room he slept in now, staring out at the light. Walter had brought his hand up to the window and touched it, expecting to feel something...maybe heat from the light. But it was only as warm as the air outside. He thought of Michael McGinnis. A nice guy. Maybe a little wilder than Walter. Jumped off tall rocks down into the creek. Climbed any tree, you didn’t even have to dare him. Things like that.

A shadow moved in front of the light and Walter felt his hair stand on end.

He spent the rest of the night with his head hidden beneath the covers, despite the summer heat. 

The next day and for a couple days after that, the police came to ask them questions. Had any of them been acting suspiciously? Did Michael mention or say anything out of the ordinary? Walter had told them everything he could think of. He asked the policeman when he could see Michael. Walter remembered the weight of his dad’s hand on his shoulder, how it patted him piteously. He didn’t truly know nothing about Wantings then.

But once he was old enough to understand his momma told him what had happened. It made him feel sick. Michael couldn't have done something like that. On her prescription, he had sat down to talk with Pastor Alan about it. Walter could still hear the disgust in the old preacher's voice. "If you ever get to feeling that way," he said, "you tell somebody. And you pray to God to take it away from you." Pastor Alan always wore white felt gloves and all these years later, Walter had an inkling why. He never saw his parents’ or his teachers' Wantingmarks, but thought that was likely for the best.  Walter's mind wandered away like smoke from a house fire.  

That’s when the phone calls started. Walter jumped out of his trip down memory lane as the receiver hopped around, the little bell inside the phone crying out with all its might. “Ward residence,” Walter said brusquely. There was silence on the line. No, not silence. Whoever it was wasn’t speaking, but Walter knew they were there. “Hello?” he asked. Whoever was on the other end took a deep breath. It seemed to go on for an hour. “Well say something,” Walter almost yelled. A long breath out. A moan. Walter slammed the phone down back onto its hooks. The rotary dial looked up at him with its 10 little eyes. Walter stood by the phone for another minute, but it didn’t ring again.

He got his coffee and stepped out onto the front porch in his boxers. Nobody lived around here anymore. Walter could walk around naked as a jaybird if he really wanted to. He sipped his coffee that was still a little too hot, still mad over the prank caller. Sicko. Pervert.

Walter looked to where the McGinnis house had been. The yard had grown up and before long, the white boards couldn't be seen for the creeping vines. No one in their right mind would live where such a thing had happened. Walter scanned the rolling hills, dotted with cows that drifted by as lazily as the clouds. He found himself staring over at the barn. The door was still ajar, but only by a hair. He must have left it unlocked. Better go make sure nothing got stole, he thought to himself. He went back in, put down his coffee, put on his boots and traipsed out over the gravel.

The phone began to ring again. 

Walter turned, half expecting the phone to be outside with him, it sounded so loud. He watched the kitchen window for a minute, but decided to let it ring. Didn’t do any good to answer those prank callers, to give 'em what they wanted. Just some stupid kids, he bet. Walter stepped close to the barn and froze.

The door was now shut and locked. He tugged at the padlock, but found it firmly clasped. Hands on his hips, he tried to figure how this could've happened.

The ringing of the telephone kept him from thinking clearly. He stomped back into the house and yanked the handle up to his ear. "Now you better have something to say," Walter said, doing his best John Wayne hardass growl.

"Well, Walt," he heard Jimmy say from the other end. "I didn't think you'd still be asleep at this hour." Walter let out a sigh. All this thinking about Wantings had him remembering how Jimmy had given in to his as well. He thought of Jimmy’s legs and how they had turned the color of cardinal wings. Walter’s mind filled with an image he tried to shake free.  How far up did the red stain go, he wondered.

Though he had not had his Wanting, he was no stranger to its many, many children. Yearning, pining, wishful thinking. They had all gnawed on him with coyote teeth for some time now. Chewed on his gristle and licked out his marrow.

"Sorry, Jimmy,” Walter said, short of breath. “I've had some prank callers this morning."

"Don't be too harsh. We were known to ding-dong ditch in our day," James said, chuckling. Walter squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I was wondering if today would be alright to come 'round and look at that tractor,” Jimmy.said. Walter opened his eyes, still seeing swirls and bursts of color. 

"Sure thing," Walter said, distracted. He slowly dropped the phone from his ear as he looked out the window. The barn door was open again. Even in the morning sun, he could see the red light coming from the shadows. Jimmy’s voice drifted from the dangling phone, asking if Walter was still there. 

Cows now crowded near the fence, standing in silence, watching him closely. Walter’s footsteps crunched over the gravel as he crossed to the barn door. The lock lay on the ground, yanked clean from its loop. Walter reached a hand out and felt a gust of wind race up along the ground and up his legs. It urged him forward. The red light fell across his eye as he peered inside. His pulse thumped against his throat.

A pile of hay in the corner was littered with arms and legs. The Wanting’s crimson turned the flesh pink and coral. Walter felt something grip his stomach and weigh heavy in his groin. His mouth parched, he stumbled forward through the open door.

A copy of Walter laid stark naked in the hay, wet and smiling. The hair all along his body was slicked down to the skin and stray bits of hay stuck to whatever coated him. 

“Hey, Walter,” the hay him said from the ground with a grin. Walter began to harden, pushing against the fly of his boxers. He tried to cover himself with his hands. 

“You can’t be in here!” Walter shouted.

“Too late,” the other replied, and Walter could swear it was Jimmy’s voice. He stretched contentedly, like a cat in the sun. 

“What are you?” Walter asked breathlessly. He knelt down in the dirt. The other him opened his legs wide, not an ounce of shame anywhere.

“Whatever you want,” the other Walter said. “Yours for the taking.” In the red light, it was as if his gums were bleeding down onto the teeth Walter saw every morning in the mirror. Walter hazarded a touch along the other Walter’s leg. He was warm and let out a laugh.

“I shouldn’t-” Walter said, but his hand continued to travel upward. A shuddering wave passed over him and he gripped the other Walter’s thigh, trying to prove that he didn’t exist. But to his dread delight, he found it was all too real.

“Come here,” the other Walter said, leaning up and pulling Walter down on top of him. Walter desperately drug his lips across the other’s. Their tongues met and Walter did his best to ignore his need for breath. The other him tasted like cut grass and honeysuckle, with a slight tang of busted lip. Trying hard not to break the embrace, Walter tugged at his boxers, pulling them down past his knees.  Both of them gasped sharply.

Walter didn’t hear Jimmy’s truck come up the drive, or the door that creaked and slammed shut. Walter was too busy looking into his own eyes, dazzling darkly in the Wanting’s light, slightly obscured by a smile.

“Walt?” Jimmy asked as he stepped inside the barn. Walt spun around. Jimmy was silhouetted against the sun, making Walt hold up a hand.

The red light was gone and so was his other self. Walt sat back into the hay. Jimmy watched him closely, checking over his shoulders suspiciously. Walt made no move to pull his boxers back up. Jimmy stammered, his cheeks burning. “I should come back later,” he said, but didn’t move. “Y-You alright?” 

Walter extended a hand, its palm a solid shade of bloody red. This same color was brushed along his chest and belly where they had pressed against the other Walter. He glistened in the sliver of light from the open door. “Never better,” Walt said. “Do you want to join me?”