The House at the End of the World

by Madeleine Marsh

  ‘So you’re suggesting we’re doing this?’ Luke turns to face him. It’s crazy. ‘You don’t think if we had three wishes we’d have gone for something less...’

  ‘Less like the crap we’ve put up with our whole lives?’

  He can always trust Matt to finish his sentences when he can’t.

  ‘Maybe it’s not wishes. Maybe it’s just… happening. I mean, that espresso machine wasn’t there until you got down here.’

  ‘But you said Nancy was.’

  ‘True. So… it could be all of us.’

  ‘One of you wished our mad Grandma back to life?’

  ‘Clearly not.’ Gabe steps away, hunches his shoulders and scratches his back carefully with the poker’s small iron hook. He isn’t giving them grief about the other thing, he doesn’t look like he cares one way or the other, so Luke’s happy to give him the benefit of the doubt while half-listening to Matt talking quietly to Joe.

  ‘Try not to think of it in terms of a normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill relationship.’ His brother’s rationalising. ‘Try to think about it more in terms of our lives being so completely twisted around that a little bit of sex on the side really isn’t anything we’re going to lose sleep over. How’s that for you?’

  ‘I don't know, quite honestly.’

  ‘Okay. Fine. But after everything that’s happened we deserve to be happy, we deserve something good and whatever you think of us now, legally, morally or whatever, we are happy and we are good. We’ve been everything to one another since we were kids and this is just hands, dicks and bodily fluids. So get over it.’

  Sometimes Luke loves Matt so strongly it takes his breath away. He resists the urge to grab him and rub Joe's face in it by sucking on Matt’s neck.

  Rick’s got the coal tongs from the fireplace and is jabbing them at the purple toy, which is alternating between aborted attempts to run off across the hall and experimentally biting at the tongs as if it’s trying to work out whether or not they’re edible. As Luke watches, Rick makes a swift and sudden grab for it and catches it, holding it out and away from him as it struggles. It doesn’t have a great deal of body strength and its arms and legs aren’t very long so it can’t get purchase on the metal plates it’s clamped between. It makes a fast, chattering sound, panicked, possibly warning others to the danger. But its struggle is futile and eventually it stops trying to escape and just hangs there.

  Luke stares at him. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Can’t we just stop her from making them?’

  ‘Oh sure!’ He doesn’t want to imagine how that would go. ‘You want to piss off an old, un-dead woman with knitting needles, be my guest.’

  ‘We don’t know how many she’s already made, how many are in the walls.’

  ‘We don’t know if they’re even a threat to us, Rick.’ He snatches the tongs and lowers the toy to the floor. It tips back to look up, growls at them, then runs on its squat little legs across the wooden floor to the bookcase where it crawls through a second hole in the skirting board, one that’s been hidden from view.

  ‘See!’ Rick points out, actions apparently justified. ‘They’ve made more holes! What if they gang together?’

  Luke rolls his eyes. ‘If they are from our stories, there were never dangerous. They ate spiders and once we made up this one story where they went after Grandma’s cat and tried to ride it like a camel. So quit your worrying.’ He hands back the tongs and turns, catches his brother’s gaze. ‘Walk?’

  ‘Definitely. Where to?’

  ~..~

  Book Three ~ Till Death Do Us Part

  nineteen years ago

  ‘What do you think our next parents will be like?’ Matt asks as Luke makes him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  Whoever lives here at the ranch, they haven't been gone long. There's milk in the fridge that hasn’t spoilt and the bread's dry but not mouldy. He's worried about Matt. His question sounds cold coming from the mouth of an eleven year old. Mom and Dad haven’t been dead a day, they were attacked by something that shouldn't even exist, and he's been waiting for the tears and the histrionics that just haven't come. They slept in a single bed in an upstairs room at the back of the house with a door that locked from the inside and a lean-to under the window in case they needed to make a run for it. But no one came in the night. Matt didn't cry in the dark. He turned his back on Luke until the light was out then he turned over and buried his face in his brother’s coat. Luke wrapped his arms around him and they slept like that until the sun rose. There were no tears and no bad dreams to wake them.

  He pushes the sandwich under Matt's nose where he's sitting at the huge kitchen table. Matt stares at it then lifts his head and looks at Luke with big eyes. Here come the tears, he thinks. But still Matt doesn’t weep.

  ‘They won't split us up will they?’

  Relieved, Luke shakes his head. ‘I won't let them, I promise.’ But even as he speaks he knows there's only one way he can make sure they stay together. If the cops haven't already found the car they will soon. They’ll put the deaths of Mom and Dad down to an animal attack. He can bet that he and Matt left clues to their direction as they ran across the scrub and in the day-light those will be found and the authorities will come looking. They'll come here. ‘We need to leave, to run away. If they don't find us they can't split us up, can they?’

  ‘No.’ Matt takes a bite of his sandwich, looking happier.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay with this?’

  He doesn't speak, he just nods.

  While Matt's in the bathroom Luke takes a look around. He knows stealing is wrong but he isn't stupid, if they're going to survive they're going to need more than luck. He finds clothes that will fit him and bundles them into an old sports bag he pulls from a closet in the master bedroom. They'll be too big for Matt but it can't be helped. He’ll grow into them. Then Matt comes out of the bathroom holding a clear plastic bag full of dog-eared hundred dollar bills bundled up with elastic bands. Maybe luck is all they’ll need after all.

  They leave very soon after, heading in the opposite direction to the road with no idea where they’re going or what they're going to do but with the means now to live for a while without the intervention of adults.

  They run at first then walk. They don’t stop except to buy chocolate and soda from a lonely store on the corner of two dirt tracks. By the end of the day they're hungry and tired. Just as it starts to get dark they fall into a dusty road. Matt hasn't cried once but he looks like he's wanted to sometimes when Luke's glanced at him. Luke feels a little like crying himself when he catches the toe of one shoe in a rusted can and falls flat on his face into dry sand and dirt. He swears instead, a word Mom would definitely have grounded him for using, but when he lifts his head he’s staring at a collection of old rusted trailers that he recognises from when Mom and Dad were looking for a tourer: four abused Airstreams, a couple of Keystones and a Spartan right at the back. There's a splintered sign on a rotting wooden stick, faded red paint still visible: 'Morgan’s Trailer Park'. The plots are overgrown and the entire park looks as if it was abandoned years ago, the trailers left to disintegrate. A quick scout over the ground turns up a tyre iron and a pair of rusted bolt cutters. He hands the iron to Matt and tells him to break in to the Keystones and the Spartan to see what kind of a state they're in while he opens up the Airstreams. He warns him to be careful and asks if he's all right. Matt nods although his eyes are too wide and a little bit watery.

  ‘We'll be okay,’ Luke promises with more conviction than he feels. As he watches his little brother go off on his own, he's both relieved and terrified that Matt seems to believe him. He waits, keeping an eye on him as he approaches the nearest trailer and hoists up the bolt cutters that look huge in his young hands. Luke turns away, pride surging through him, pushing back some of the raw grief.

  He pries open the door of the first Airstream like a can opener. The inside is trashed. Whoever lived here left in a hurry; all the drawers and cupboa
rds are open, there's a sick-inducing stench and the bed sheets are gross, stained dark. Luke would rather sleep outside than sleep in that bed.

  The second trailer's full of old electronics. There's a rank smell of acid so sharp he can feel his eyes start to water and his nose close up. When he gets back outside he calls to Matt.

  ‘Found anything?’

  Matt calls back from top step of one of the Keystones. ‘A dead cat and a possible crime scene.’

  Luke can't tell whether he's being serious, but he hears metal snapping under pressure so whatever he's seen hasn't put him off looking. He's suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of relief that his brother's not a cry-baby like some of the kids in his class at school. They might not share the same parents but Luke’s glad Matt’s his kid brother.

  ‘Be careful, bro,’ he shouts back and goes on to the third Airstream, one of the big ones: a Starship or an Overlander if he remembers right. Levering open the door he sniffs the air before going inside. It's slightly stale but nowhere near as bad as the other two. There's no sign that rats have got in, the place looks tidy and clean except for a layer of dust that would give Carol-Anne, Mom's maid, a mild stroke. But otherwise it's not bad, definitely salvageable. The big bed at the far end has no sheets but the mattress looks okay. There are cobwebs in the bathroom and a huge spider right in the middle of the shower stall, but that's not going to put him off. Matt can get rid of it.

  Standing in the middle of the kitchenette, he knows they could stay here. He's no idea why he ran instead of waiting for the cops last night, but he knows why they ran today and something inside him is telling him this is the right thing to do. They don't need the authorities to turn them into paperwork and burdens. He won't risk them being split up even though he has no idea how likely that is. They can look after themselves, he's sure of it.

  Leaning out of the door he calls across, ‘Matt! Come here, I found one.’

  There's the sound of footsteps running on hard ground before Matt appears in front of him, excitement on his face when he looks inside. ‘Are we going to live here?’

  ‘For now. Is it okay?’ Matt nods. ‘The cash from the house will buy food. I'll think of something before it runs out, I'll get a job or something. I'll take care of us, I promise.’

  Matt looks at him with absolute trust. ‘I know you will. Are you sure no one's coming back?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He's sure. He doesn’t know how or why but it's that same feeling of right. ‘Stay here. I'll go find us something to eat. There must be a store close by.’

  ‘I'll come with you.’

  ‘Matt—’

  ‘I don't want to be here alone.’

  It's his first sign of weakness. He's eleven years old. His parents were killed last night. Luke feels a wave of protectiveness so strong he can't speak for a minute so he nods, pushes Matt out of the trailer and pulls the door to, catching it on the latch. The lock is screwed since he destroyed it.

  There's a 7-Eleven a mile down the road. It's got bars over the windows and they have to wade through trash to reach it, but they get microwave Burritos, Doritos, Hershey Bars and giant sodas. They can't live on shit like this but he'll come back tomorrow, once they've checked if there’s a generator on the park he can get working. If not they'll find another way to cook. He asks the clerk if anyone lives in the Morgan’s Park trailers and the spotty kid laughs.

  ‘All the drug dealers and white trash left town years back.’

  Luke wants to disagree but he keeps his mouth shut and just thanks the guy.

  Back at the Airstream they find a couple of working flashlights under the bench in the living area and sit up talking until it's later than Mom and Dad let them stay up.

  ‘I wanna find what killed them,’ Matt declares when they've finished all the food. ‘And kill it.’

  ‘You want to find a werewolf?’

  ‘I know how to kill them. Silver bullets.’

  ‘I don't know if that really works....’

  ‘It must do. If werewolves are real, silver bullets must be too.’

  He has a point and Luke doesn't feel like arguing. ‘Okay. We'll do that. We'll find out where it lives and kill it. Just as soon as we're sorted here. All right?’

  Matt nods.

  Eventually, when Matt's fallen asleep with his head on Luke's leg, Luke turns the flashlights off and they stay on the bench all night.

  ~..~

  seventeen years ago

  What a rush!

  Luke yelps in excitement, adrenaline coursing through him as he runs through the undergrowth, blade held high, half-listening for his brother’s heavy footfalls. When he reaches the edge of the forest he stops, plants his feet in the soil, his hands on his thighs and takes in deep gulping breaths of air. Matt isn’t far behind, breaking cover from the thick foliage with a whoop and slapping him on the back.

  ‘That was crazy!’

  Luke laughs and looks up, the mirth draining fast. ‘Hey, are you hurt?’

  Matt looks down at himself, ‘No, it’s not mine.’ He’s practically covered head to toe in whatever it was they’ve just tracked and killed.

  Relief washes in, Luke’s smile returning. His heart feels like it’s trying to break out from his ribcage. They’ve tracked things down before, evil things that should never have been given life, but this is the first time it’s gone to plan, the first time they’ve worked together in perfect sync, the kill executed without a single mistake. For the first time, Luke believes they can actually do this.

  ‘I really need a shower,’ Matt points out and Luke straightens up, looks at him and grins. He’s so proud right now. Matt is thirteen years old. Most kids his age are causing havoc in the playground, bullying or being bullied, kicking around a soccer ball and trying to work out what girls are for. Matt has just sliced the throat of something significantly older than he is and more than twice his size. Luke’s still not sure he did the right thing by running the night their parents were killed, but at least now he knows it wasn’t the worst thing he could have done. His brother’s an intelligent kid, chances are he could have been a straight-A student, attended an Ivy League school and become a lawyer or a doctor, even a chef. He’s equally sure his own future lay inside a coffee shop or at best a garage. It’s all irrelevant now. They can’t go back. He doesn’t want to. It’s selfish but he hopes Matt feels the same. He looks like he does, grinning ear to ear as he stands there covered in something else’s insides.

  Luke nods. ‘Shower. Right.’ Together they turn and start walking the five miles back to the trailer park.

  ~..~

  fifteen years ago

  ‘How old are you, boy?’

  ‘Nineteen, sir.’ It's a lie that comes smoothly now. Luke looks it, easy. Matt's tall for his age too, he's passing for eighteen, older when they're lucky. The motel's overweight owner doesn't really care, none of them ever do. He takes the cash and hands over a room key.

  Over the years they've become serial criminals and damn good trackers. They've made the trailer into a home of sorts with a working generator and illegal cable. They’ve leant how to live with barely any money and no one to look after them.

  The first time they went after the werewolf they ran into two women, Donna Clay and Samantha Weston, who stopped them from making the fatal mistake of thinking they knew what they were doing. They stayed with Matt and Luke for a few weeks at the park, camping out in one of the Keystones that Luke had cleared out in case he or Matt needed some space away from each other. Both women were in their forties and called themselves 'trackers', the first time Matt and Luke heard the term. They said they'd been killing inhuman things for ten years, since something ate their husbands while they were on a men-only fishing trip in Wyoming. ‘Everyone has a story,’ Donna told them after listening to theirs.

  They taught Matt and Luke how to shoot the semi-automatics they found in one of the other trailers, showed them how to do research – which books were of real use and which were fiction – and how t
o ask questions which might otherwise have people calling the cops. They taught them other stuff too: how to get credit cards without a fixed address, how to hotwire a car, how to patch up a bullet hole or a knife wound. Not once did they mention going to school or finding a foster family. Not once did they treat them as anything but equals.

  Four years on, Matt and Luke are moving around a bit. They’re still based at Morgan’s Park but now they’re spending a few days a month on the road, sleeping in shitty motels and eating the healthiest food they can get their hands on. When they're back at the Airstream, Matt cooks; he's developed a flair for it after watching too much of the Cookery Channel. They stole a 1994 Ford Mustang three months before, three states over, from the parking lot of a strip bar. No one's shown the slightest interest in it and Luke thinks the owner probably hasn't reported it as nicked. He has a fake driving licence and he’s planning on getting Matt one for his sixteenth birthday.

  They've amassed a small arsenal of weapons including the pistol which shot the silver bullet that killed the werewolf, the one that murdered their parents. Going on a tip from a guy they ran into at a motel outside Las Vegas, they brought it down one full moon, six months ago. They're expert trackers now, professionals, schooled in the arts of credit card fraud, identity forging and grand theft auto.

  Matt, as it turns out, is an ace with a pool cue. He can look so innocent and naive when he wants to that no one ever works out they've been hustled even when they're handing over the cash. They've been eking out a meagre living that way while tracking down and killing things that have no right walking on the surface of the Earth and sending them back to Hell.