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Cold hands run up his shirt. He shivers and moans into his mouth. His breath tastes of beer. He had been drinking tonight. Clumsily, he unbuttons his top and shoulders it off. It slips easily off the edge of the bed to the stained, carpeted flooring of his bedroom.
The dirty blonde beneath him laughs airily as his hands continue to explore the other’s broad chest. Calloused fingers gingerly card through coarse chest hairs. Despite the coldness of the winter, the two have found warmth in each other. The sheets ruffle beneath them, giving away their sinful secret. They smile and shush each other while still trying to rid themselves of their clothes.
What they’re doing is shameful. They should feel guilt. They should feel wrong. They don’t. Not one second. Shame quickly dissolves when they look at the pure joy written on each other’s faces. “Do you have a condom?” The dirty blonde whispers. The brunette nods and opens his nightstand drawer to find one. It’s then when a sharp knock is heard on his bedroom door.
Ash furrows his brow, he knows exactly who it is. It’s his annoying younger sister Cheryl. Ash closes the drawer and makes his way to the door, opening it only slightly so she cannot see his bare chest. “What do you want?” He scowls.
Cheryl hands him a piece of sheet music. “I think my timing is off. Can you please play this on the piano so I can get my dance right?” She requests. Ash takes the sheet. He looks at it in confusion. It’s one he’s never seen in his life. To be fair, Ash isn’t all too invested in Cheryl’s ballet performances, but it’s usually the same seven songs. This is completely new to him.
“Is it that important? I’m kind of busy,” Ash says with a glance back to Scotty who’s busy toying with his TV remote.
Cheryl furrows her brow and Ash can’t help but think that she looks exactly like her mother when she does that. “It’s for my big competition on Sunday! Please, Ashley! I never ask for anything. I won’t even tell Dad that you invited Scummy over!” She pleads.
Ash pinches the bridge of his nose. “His name is Scotty . You need to stop repeating everything Dad says, one day you’ll say an ethnic slur. If it’s really that important, I’ll play it for you, alright?” Cheryl squeals in delight and thanks him. Ash closes the door and sighs. Scotty smirks at him. “I’m gonna go help Cheryl practice her stupid ballet thing. Don’t touch my stuff,” he says in a low tone. He thinks for a moment before adding, “unless to tidy up.”
Scotty snickers as he watches Ash head for the door. “Forgetting something?” He questions. Ash turns back to him, the gears in his head turning. Timidly, he places a kiss on Scotty’s forehead. The dirty blonde’s face scrunches up in confusion. “Your shirt ?”
Ash blushes as he understands what Scotty meant. He laughs while picking his shirt up off the floor. “Yeah, I knew that,” he smiles sheepishly.
He buttons it up and goes down to the dance room. The house had been four bedroom, but since there wasn’t another child, they had turned it into more of a performing arts room. Cheryl is already inside with her white leotard and shoes. Ash has never liked dancing as much as his younger sister. He wasn’t ever any good at it. He was clumsy, and his masculinity made him stick out like a sore thumb amongst his feminine peers.
Ash settles down by the piano and cracks his fingers. “The sheet music is different this time. Is your studio finally deciding to do something new?” Ash questions while propping it up.
He plays softly to familiarize himself with the piece while Cheryl answers him. “Yeah, but it’s really weird. Mrs. Wu seemed off the last practice we had. She barely talked at all. She stopped me after class to… to ask about you,” she says. She seems as if she’s choosing her words carefully which Ash knows she never does.
Ash’s fingers hover over the keys at the last sentence. The only times he and Mrs. Wu talk are when he picks Cheryl up from practice. Ash is polite, and Cheryl takes forever to get ready, so he strikes up small talk. “I heard they’re going to cancel the football game at the high school because of the rain.” or “This place looks so different from when I used to dance here.”
It was strange that Mrs. Wu would ask about him. “What did she say?” Ash asks curiously, resuming the piece.
Cheryl pulls a loose thread from her silk leotard. “She asked how you were, so I said fine. She mentioned how winter break is coming up and was wondering if we were going on vacation anywhere, but then she started to mumble about how it was too early. The last thing she asked was if you still like to dance, but I didn’t know. Do you still like to dance?”
Ash doesn’t shiver, but a feeling engulfs his body. It creeps up his spine and spreads to his shaky fingers on the piano keys. “I… don’t like dancing, no. Let’s just move on to your practice, alright? I don’t want to keep Scotty waiting longer than I already have,” Ash says briskly. He returns to the first page and readies his fingers on the keys.
His eyes catch on the title of the piece which he had only skimmed over, making him almost falter and fumble the first line. It’s entitled The Rotting Requiem . It seems very macabre for a preteenage ballet class. Ash enjoys playing the piano. The feeling of memorizing a hard piece, listening to Cheryl sing along if there’s lyrics, impressing Scotty. It’s why he’s pursuing music in the first place. There’s just something off. Ash feels tense. He feels like he’s being watched. Cheryl’s too focused on her dance to be watching him. Scotty’s up in his room probably watching his TV. His Dad is out at some bar. That reminds him, Ash should be making dinner right now, but instead he’s playing piano with Cheryl and screwing around with Scotty. Typically he’d be more focused on preparing a meal, but Cheryl is his sister and he’d rather face possible cigarette burns than disappoint her even further than he already has. He tries not to focus on it. Tries to engulf himself in the music to drown out these thoughts, but the tune is too melancholy.
Ash glances over to Cheryl. She looks like an angel, leaping and twirling across the room as if she were born to do it. The white of her outfit contrasts with the yellow and beige coloring of the room. It makes her stand out. It makes her glow .
It must be a trick of the light. Ash turns his attention back to the requiem. The thoughts creep back into his mind. How he stood there at the top of the stairs and watched her nose slam into the counter. He did nothing. He just stood there. His fingers slam down harder on the keys. The loudness must drown it out. His gaze flicks back over to Cheryl and he catches a glimpse of her face. She has a bloody nose. Ash tries to pause. He tries to take his hands away and ask if she’s okay, but he can’t. There’s something willing him to keep playing.
Ash disregards it as his imagination. If Cheryl had a bloody nose, she would have stopped dancing and asked Ash for help. But she never asks for help. Ash harkens back to the time she had sprained her ankle dancing. Sprains happen all the time. He had told her to walk it off. She insisted it really hurt, and Ash had snapped and told her that he was watching something and would look at it when it was over. So Cheryl just went back to her room. It turned out that she had broken her ankle. Ash felt terrible driving her to the hospital and all she could say was, “It wasn’t your fault, Ashley.”
The music taunts him with its sobering melody. Though he doesn’t want to, Ash looks at Cheryl again. He nearly jumps out of his skin at the sight of her. She’s tall, clearly older. Her hair is grey and her face looks like it’s decaying. Ash tries to pull his hands away from the piano, but they keep playing without his permission. And Cheryl keeps dancing . Ash tries to scream, but it’s like his voice has been taken away from him. The music warps, corrupts, corrodes. Ash can see his sister’s flesh melt off and fall to the floor, maggots eating away at the dead skin.
The room around them shifts. It changes into a cabin. There’s blood and broken furniture everywhere. Ash looks to see Cheryl dance around Scotty’s decaying body hunched over on the couch. He spots his friend Linda sitting in the doorway cackling loudly, but it’s nothing compared to the volume of the music. It makes Ash’s ears throb, his head pound. The stench of blood is foul.
Cheryl, his sweet twelve year old sister, dances to the solemn tune. Her costume is stained near black with blood, her face is falling apart, her eyes are white . Ash can’t look at her much longer without feeling sick. He looks back to the piano and notices he has no right hand. Blood drips from his wound onto the keys which play themselves.
He feels insane. He feels mad as a hatter. Ash screams airlessly, wondering why the song won’t end. He gets it now. The Rotting Requiem . It’s not Cheryl who’s rotting, it’s him.
___
Cheryl sniffles, shaking her older brother’s shoulder. “C’mon, Ashley, wake up,” she cries quietly. She flinches at the noise of heavy footsteps descending the stairs. When she sees Scotty’s face at the bottom of the stairs she calms. He turns and looks at her, noticing her red face and watery eyes. “Ashley just fell asleep at the piano and he won’t wake up,” she explains.
Scotty’s eyes widen and he rushes into the dance room to Ash’s side. He lifts Ash’s head and discovers blood dripping from his nose and his mouth foaming. “Shit. Fuck. We need to take him to the hospital. We’ll… we’ll take the Delta. Just let me get the keys,” Scotty says, attempting to maintain control of the situation.
Cheryl stays by Ash’s side until Scotty comes back with the keys and us he’s her into his car. She sits in the backseat while they make the short drive to the hospital, looking out the window so that she doesn’t have to look at her brother’s slumped figure in the passenger’s seat.
They drive down the road and Cheryl looks at her dance studio. She sees Mrs. Wu in the window, looking at the car. She has the biggest smile on her face, and her eyes are completely white.