Murder House

by C. V. Hunt

  I pointed at the laptop. “What the fuck is this?”

  “The truth.”

  “The truth?”

  He crossed his arms over his vomit-streaked chest. “Yeah.”

  “You think I’ve poisoned you?”

  He didn’t respond. Only stared at me with a hateful expression.

  “You’re out of your fucking head. That’s why you bought that heart or whatever the fuck it was?”

  “Ain’t that the pot calling the kettle black. Out of my fucking head? What are you talking about?”

  “The heart. In the fridge. The one I threw in the backyard!”

  “I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

  I stormed to the backdoor and slammed into it to get it open. I walked out into the dew-covered grass and looked for the heart in the area I was certain it had landed. There was a spot of bent and broken grass and some dried blood but the heart was gone. I stomped back into the house and found Brent in the kitchen where I had left him. He had a confused look on his face.

  “I don’t know what you did with it,” I said, “or if a stray dog took it but you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Holy shit. You need to go back on your meds.”

  “Me?! You’re buying animal organs to eat and accusing me of poisoning you!”

  “Are you fucking high?!”

  I snatched up the pack of cigarettes sitting on the table. “Ten years!” I shook the pack at him. “Ten years and you decide to smoke half a pack in one sitting. You don’t think that’s what made you sick? Get a hold of yourself.” I flung the pack in the direction of the trash can. It hit the wall and bounced to the floor.

  Brent eagerly retrieved the pack and fingered the flip-top lid as if it were something precious I might’ve broken. “Where were you?” he hissed.

  “I told you. I went to The Meditation Temple. As a matter of fact, I spoke to Dan afterward and got a job cleaning the place. So, you’re welcome. We’ll now be able to afford groceries and your fucking smoking habit. But as far as I’m concerned you can fix your own fucking meals from now on.”

  “Fine.”

  I grabbed the book off the table and turned to retreat to the bedroom but stopped and turned back to him. I looked at the computer for a second, took a deep breath to calm myself, and said, “I can leave if you want.” I nodded toward the laptop. “Doesn’t sound like you want me here anyway.”

  I don’t know why I’d said it. I didn’t have anywhere to go. The car was his. How the fuck could I leave? There was a sick part of me that wanted Brent to tell me to go. If he told me to get out that meant I wasn’t at fault for ending the relationship. If Brent told me to leave that meant we were officially over. But another part of me wanted him to beg me to stay. I wanted him to apologize for some manic episode he’d had or sleepwalking or . . . I don’t know. Something. I wanted him to be panicked and frantic at the thought of me leaving. I wanted him to at least act like he still loved me.

  He said, “Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

  His words felt like a physical blow. It felt as though he’d sucker punched me in the gut. I don’t know why. Hadn’t I known for a long time he didn’t really care about me anymore? It was like when a woman would ask her friends if they thought her husband was cheating on her, rehashing all the vague evidence of infidelity. If you’re asking if your partner is cheating on you, don’t you already know? If you’re asking, it’s because all the signs are right in front of your face and you’re in denial. I was in denial that Brent still cared about me. He didn’t give a fuck. All he cared about was himself and his fucking writing. Those two things were the only things on his list of priorities. Well, fuck him. He only kept me around to make his life more convenient and I wasn’t going to be his mommy anymore. He was on his own. He could cook his own food, clean his own dishes, wash his own clothes, clean up after himself. I wasn’t doing it anymore. I guess I could walk out on him and be done with it but I wanted to stick around and make him miserable. I wanted him to hurt the way I was hurting at that moment. It seemed only fair. How long had he been wasting my time? How long had he known he didn’t give a shit about me?

  I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me. I said, “You smell like a sewer and it’s making me sick. Clean yourself up, fucking hog.” I didn’t give him a chance to retaliate or reply. I spun on my heels and stormed off to the bedroom to get some sleep before I started my new job that night.

  THIRTEEN

  CLICK CLICK . . . CLICK click click.

  A faint echo of an erratic beat filled the darkness and suddenly I found myself walking without knowing where I was or how I’d gotten there. I was in the middle of an empty and decaying city and there wasn’t a person to be seen. None of the cars moved. Everything was still.

  Click click click click . . . click.

  I tried to match my stride with the sound but it was impossible. The tempo was too frantic. I began to notice a presence, or a lack of presence, coming from behind me. I turned to see a crumbling cliff at my heels and nothing but space and a void behind me. The distance into the nothingness made my stomach hurt. For every step I took forward the world previously under my feet had crumbled away and fallen off into space. The end of the world was right behind me.

  I began to run.

  Click . . . click click . . . click click.

  I ran through the empty streets of an unfamiliar city as the world disintegrated behind me.

  I ran and ran and ran without ever getting winded and it felt like running through molasses. I ran to the edge of the city and looked back to see nothing but darkness. I ran through the countryside as fields behind me were devoured by the void. I ran through small towns and past campgrounds.

  Click click . . . click click click . . .

  I ran past farms and restaurants and stores. I looked back and they were eradicated. I ran through deserts and over mountains. I ran past lakes and schools. I ran down highways.

  Click click . . . click . . . click click.

  I ran to the beach and stopped. A sharp drop into nothingness behind me and the tide touching my toes in front of me. The tide running up over my shoes. The tide running up over my ankles and dropping off the cliff and into the void. The world was gone behind me and the tide was coming in.

  Click . . . click . . . click click . . . click.

  The tide came up to my shins and I struggled to keep my balance and stay standing. The tide receded. In the distance a large swell rose higher and higher, coming closer and closer. The wall of water was taller than me and it was gaining speed.

  Twenty feet away.

  Fifteen feet away.

  Ten feet away.

  Five feet—

  I gasped and shot up to a sitting position in bed. The book Dan had given me fell to the floor. I’d fallen asleep while reading it. I gulped air and squinted against the early afternoon sun. An overwhelming sense of relief washed over me as the realization it was only a dream settled in. I was sweating profusely and the sheets were damp. The box fan did little to relieve the stifling heat as the sun was shining directly on me through the bare window.

  The clicking of Brent’s laptop echoed through the house. The bedroom smelled heavily of cigarette smoke and made it difficult to breathe.

  When we moved the bed upstairs I’d noticed there was a curtain rod above the window but no curtain. It wasn’t an issue before. We went to bed once it was dark and were up once the sun rose. It had been a long time since I’d had to work a night shift. I’d forgotten how difficult it was to get sleep during the day while the rest of the world was awake. Thankfully we didn’t live on a busy road or near any businesses. I recalled the time I worked in a shitty factory and lived in an apartment above an elderly couple’s garage and how the damn neighbors would put their fucking dog out on a chain, regardless of the weather, at nine in the morning and left it out there until nine at night and the fucking thing barked nonstop. I always wanted to get an airhorn and stand
outside the neighbors’ bedroom window and blast the thing every three seconds from nine at night until nine in the morning on my day off so they could see how fucking annoying it was when you were trying to get some sleep.

  I got out of bed and went to the closet where we kept the boxes with our clothes and bedding. I found a blanket and proceeded to gingerly drape it over the flimsy aluminum curtain rod, hoping the weight of the blanket didn’t break or bend the hooks holding the rod.

  Once I’d blocked the majority of the sunlight from roasting me I returned to the bed but stopped when I spotted the book on the floor. The book had fallen open to an illustration of a sleeping woman draped over a bed. A demon-type creature was perched on the woman’s stomach and a faint horse with glowing eyes was in the background. The description read ‘The Nightmare’ by Henry Fuseli. I picked up the book and flipped to the index in the back until I found the word ‘water’ and turned to the page listed beside it and read:

  Water occurs commonly in dreams, as it’s a universal symbol for emotions. Turbulent waters will appear in your dreams when you are in an emotional crisis. You may dream later that you’re crossing the same waters but they are calm once the crisis has passed. Raging waters may be a symbol of self-discovery while a flood or a tsunami are there to remind you to let go.

  I closed the book and laid it on the floor. I got into bed and lay on my back. I draped my arm over my eyes and mumbled, “Tell me something I don’t know,” before trying for more sleep. I hoped it was dreamless this time.

  FOURTEEN

  THE HOUSE WAS quiet when I woke later in the evening. I lay in bed for a few minutes listening for any sign of Brent but my grumbling stomach and full bladder forced me out of bed. When I stepped out into the hallway I found the attic ladder was down. I called for Brent as I approached the ladder but there was no reply.

  A light was on in the attic. I placed my foot on the first step and tested the rickety thing. I knew the moment I got halfway up it I wouldn’t be able to get much farther but with the way Brent had acted earlier I wouldn’t put it past him to give me the silent treatment. The last thing I wanted to do was to accidently shut him up in the attic. As much as a small, smug part of me would love to lock him in the attic overnight I didn’t want to have that argument. I definitely would never hear the end of it. Years would pass and out of nowhere Brent would feel compelled to throw it in my face again to make me feel guilty.

  I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and began to climb the ladder, hoping my bladder would hold out. It’s only a few feet, I thought. You’re not going to die if the ladder breaks. I focused on the ledge of the opening and tried not to let the bending and shifting of the old wood freak me out. My palms began to sweat and I forced myself to keep going. Once I’d made it halfway up my bladder really began to protest. It wasn’t until I’d made it to the top that I thought I should’ve brought the cell phone with me in case I did fall and break my leg and piss my shorts.

  I grasped the edge of the opening with a death grip and peeked over the edge. “Brent?”

  He wasn’t in the attic. The attic was nearly empty. There was a trunk and what looked like an old 8mm projector sitting on the lid. A sheet was hung on the wall as a makeshift screen and the projector was pointed at it.

  I gave myself a small pep talk and tried not to think about how far off the ground I was or how full my bladder was and pulled myself into the attic, scraping my shin savagely in the process. I sat on the dirty wood floor and cursed as I assessed the missing skin and trickle of blood running down my leg. Once I’d gotten all the fucks and cocksuckers out of my system I turned my attention back to the projector.

  I walked cautiously across the attic, wondering how safe it was to be up here. The floor was constructed of old, unfinished particle board and was swollen and warped in several places. It was apparent the roof leaked and the attic floor took the brunt of the abuse. I noticed some fresh, deep scratches in the flooring as I neared the trunk. It looked as though Brent had dragged the trunk across the floor. I followed the scratches as they led to a makeshift door in the wall.

  The door was merely a piece of plywood with a hole drilled in it as a handle. There were no hinges. The whole door popped out of the wall when I stuck my finger in the hole and pulled. It was difficult to see without the flashlight but it looked as though someone had stored their holiday decorations in the makeshift closet and either forgot about them or didn’t give a shit about leaving them when they moved. I put the door back in its proper spot and went to investigate the trunk.

  The projector had film in it and was plugged in. I lifted the projector off the trunk and set it on the floor. The trunk’s latches were rusty and difficult to open. Inside were some Christmas ornaments and an empty space I imagined was where the projector was stored. There was one box for a reel of film but it was empty.

  I closed the lid and put the projector back on top of the trunk before looking it over. There was a switch on the top and I flipped it. The projector started and the film began to turn but no picture showed up on the sheet. I looked the contraption over and found another switch labeled ‘lamp’ and flipped it. A grainy, dim picture appeared on the sheet. I made my way to the overhead light and pulled the cord to shut it off. The attic was plunged into darkness. The only light came from a small window on the front side of the house.

  In the film, the cameraperson was walking through the house. The house was in much better condition than its current state and held furniture that appeared outdated but in good shape. The cameraperson began climbing the stairs. For some reason, watching as they ascended the stairs caused me to break out in gooseflesh. They appeared to be creeping along as if they were attempting to keep quiet. And there was something about the scene that made me think it was happening directly below me in real time although it was apparent the film came from another time period. Once the person was at the top of the stairs they panned to our bedroom.

  The door to our bedroom was open but the room was outfitted with a four-poster bed. Someone was sleeping in the bed. The cameraperson approached and got close to the person’s face. It was an older woman with dark hair. Her mouth was slack and her eyelids twitched as if she were dreaming. The cameraperson didn’t move. They kept her sleeping face in frame. I wasn’t sure how long the camera lingered on the sleeping woman but it was becoming uncomfortable. Suddenly, the camera jerked up and the cameraperson exited the room hurriedly. The picture became a jerky mess as the person made their way down the stairs. The person stopped in the living room and directed the camera to the open basement door. There were no lights on in the basement. The camera was focused on the blackened doorway. The frame shook in such a way I imagined the cameraperson trembling. I watched closely as something moved in the doorway. I couldn’t tell what it was. The picture and doorway were too dark but I swore it might’ve been a person. The picture disappeared and was replaced by some weird markings and then the picture went white. The film began ticking as it flipped against the projector. It was done.

  I turned on the overhead light before shutting the projector off. I needed the reassurance of the light because the film had creeped me out and had made me very aware of how badly I needed to pee. I could feel the trickle of blood from my wounded shin sliding down my leg and the sensation intensified my urgency to relieve my bladder.

  I shut off the overhead light and slowly began the terrifying descent down the ladder. Once I made it to the bottom I closed up the attic door and dashed down the stairs, heading toward the bathroom. Just as I made it to the living room Brent opened the front door, holding a grocery sack. I’d been so focused on getting to the bathroom that his sudden and unexpected appearance frightened me and I screamed. My outburst frightened Brent. He jumped and looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

  I continued hurrying toward the bathroom and called, “Gotta pee!” Brent murmured something about me being a psycho as I slammed the bathroom door. As I was relieving myself I realized the kitchen
knife was still on the bathroom counter. I looked to the shower and couldn’t help but think of the Hitchcock movie.

  FIFTEEN

  I’D USED ALL the Band-Aids we had left on my shin after exiting the shower. I’d forgotten to bring any clothes with me so I wrapped myself in a towel and slipped my shoes back on. When I finally opened the door of the bathroom I was assaulted by a foul smell I’d never encountered before. I was certain it was something Brent was cooking but I had no idea what it was and I hoped it was something he wouldn’t cook anytime in the near future. The stench almost made me gag and as much as my stomach had been grumbling I wasn’t sure I’d be able to eat, even if it was something entirely different. I resigned to the idea of making a sandwich and eating it on my way to work so I wouldn’t have to smell whatever it was that Brent had made.

  I found Brent in the kitchen, scraping the last bit of something from a pot and into a bowl. An opened can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew sat on the counter. I thought about making a remark about how I didn’t think what he was cooking would be any less poisonous than whatever he thought I was feeding him but I kept the snark to myself.

  The evening breeze coming through the window was cooler than normal and the wind was picking up. I peeked through the sheer curtains in the kitchen and spotted a line of dark clouds in the distance and two flashes of lightning. It took several seconds for the faint rumble of thunder to be heard.

  “Great,” I said to no one in particular. “It’s going to storm.”

  Brent didn’t respond.

  I headed toward the bedroom to get dressed. I dug through several of the boxes in the closet until I found my jeans. I wasn’t sure if the storm was bringing in a cold front but the temperature of the air coming from outside seemed to be dropping drastically by the minute. I got dressed and continued to root around in the boxes until I found my rain jacket. The Meditation Temple wasn’t far but I had no idea how long the storm would last and I didn’t want to get soaked.