The House at the End of the World

by Madeleine Marsh

  It's all so familiar.

  Matt finally takes the shot and misses everything. Luke can't help but laugh. Apparently Matt can't help but flip him the bird and he laughs even harder. They’re brothers first and foremost and some things won’t ever change.

  ‘You know,’ Luke starts. ‘This place is very similar to the roadhouse at the Locked Crossroads.’

  It’s an urban legend, the Locked Crossroads, so-called because the stories claimed people that who travelled to the centre of the cross were never able to leave, that whatever direction they travelled in they would always end up back in the centre. And when eventually they went mad trying to escape, the road would open up and Hell would swallow their souls. Just for a laugh someone built a roadhouse there in the seventies, called it The Gates of Hell. It attracted a lot of bikers. The interior and exterior here are more than a little reminiscent of the Gates. The stories are bullshit, obviously. He and Matt went, enjoyed a couple of beers and a game or two of pool, uninterrupted mostly, before heading off on their way, driving west. They never saw the place again.

  Matt straightens and looks around. ‘It's not similar, it's the same place.’

  Luke isn’t sure he can remember it that well. ‘Maybe. I think the layout’s wrong.’

  He glances out through the glass in the closest window pane. He can see the house some way back in the distance, but there's nothing else just like there wasn't when they walked here. And now he’s wondering where all the people have come from, because there are no cars out front and no other residences as far as the eye can see. It gives him an uncomfortable feeling to think that they’ve just appeared because he wanted a beer and might have to disappear again when he and Matt leave.

  Matt leans his ass against the edge of the table, cue still in his hand. ‘What if something’s taking our memories and using them to create this place?’

  ‘The roadhouse?’

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘As a reward?’

  That’s a depressing thought. ‘This is what you want? A rundown house in the middle of nowhere, four people we barely know and our dead grandma who keeps knitting toys that come to life?’

  ‘You wanted the bar. I wanted coffee.’

  ‘That machine was probably there all along and they just didn't see it. That corner of the kitchen is dark.’

  ‘Gabe the coffee addict failed to spot an espresso machine the size of a mini bar?’ Matt turns back to the table and Luke watches him work out his next shot before bending at the waist to line it up, shuffling his feet apart. It gives him ideas he still isn’t one hundred percent comfortable with. ‘What about this place? Are you saying Gabe and Joe missed this too?’

  He shrugs. He will admit it’s strange, especially given the other stuff. But there has to be an explanation and he’s hopeful it’ll be one that makes sense. ‘Maybe they didn’t walk this far.’ Just as Matt pulls back the cue, Luke experimentally slides his hand into the back left pocket of his jeans.

  ‘Hey!’ Matt straightens and turns to protest and Luke holds up the neatly folder hundred dollar note he found there.

  ‘What the fuck...?’

  ‘I want another round.’

  ‘So... you’re saying you wished that to be there?’

  ‘I'm saying I want another round and I need cash. Also I was trying to put you off.’

  Matt indicates the table. ‘Can I just...?’

  Luke shrugs, leaves him to take the shot and goes to the bar, returning with two more beers, two tequila shots and some girl's phone number which he promptly tears in half the same way he's been tearing phone numbers in half for a number of years. He doesn't want to think about that because as happy as he is to defend them to the others, a reality check brings him to the simple fact that he did spend the morning jerking his brother off. However not related they are he was still there when Matt started school, when he fell off his bike and bled all the way from the driveway to the bathroom without a single tear to get Luke, rather than Mom, to clean the wound. Mom wouldn't have wanted to get blood on her clothes no matter how much she loved her son. Both her sons. There was never any doubt about that. But Matt turned to Luke when he needed something, not to his parents, that’s how it was. What they did this morning, it feels like the final extension of what they’ve been up to now – everything to each other – and the rounding off of this complete co-dependency they've developed over time. He doesn't mind, he's never minded. It isn't right by anyone's definition of 'right', but it sure feels like it was meant to be and it’s better than anything he's ever done before.

  Matt's hand on his backside startles him back to his beer. ‘Thinking about me?’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Seeing if I can magic a hundred dollars out of your ass the same way you did out of mine.’ He comes up empty handed. ‘Um. Not fair.’

  Luke grins and winks. ‘Feel free to keep trying.’

  They play a few games, drink a few more beers, get a little drunk. The light starts to fade outside.

  ‘How long do you think we've been here?’ There isn't a clock and he's starting to speculate on whether or not time as a working concept even exists here.

  Matt glances out through the window. ‘A couple of hours?’

  ‘Think we should get back?’

  ‘No.’

  They play another game, buy another round. As Matt strides around the table looking for his next shot, he asks, ‘What do you think we should want, if we could have anything?’

  Luke considers this. There have been rare times over the years when he’s wished they didn’t know what they know, wished they hadn’t found exactly what they went looking for when they started out. There hasn’t been a single day when he didn’t wish Matt could have had a normal life, endured through high school and cut loose at college, even if that meant their relationship turned out differently. Even if it meant both of them not being the men they are. He knows Matt feels differently, that he wouldn’t change anything, possibly not even the werewolf attack and that should be more of a concern than he's ever let it be. Matt was closer to Luke than he ever was to Mom or Dad. They weren’t Parents of the Year, but while they were alive they made sure their sons were provided for, kept safe and loved. For whatever reason, Matt has always treasured their relationship over everything else. Not that Luke doesn’t, he wouldn’t give Matt up for anything in this world or any other. But on occasion, when the situation's been bad, when it's been too damn close with some of the terrible things they’ve faced and the injuries they’ve suffered, Luke has seriously considered finding a small quiet town and just stopping, renting a place and living like normal people for a while. Maybe forever.

  The problem is he can’t unlearn or deny all the things he knows and one of those things is that normality is just a veneer covering the world. People don’t see beyond it because they don’t want to. No one can know and still go to work in an office every day, sit in front of the television at night. Once they knew, they were cursed with that knowledge and they had no choice but to live the way they lived. Of course, when things really started to kick off, three or four months ago, when more and more people started to see through the cracks, he and Matt were suddenly the lucky ones; self-trained, qualified to survive. They stopped being the lunatics and started becoming the heroes.

  So if he only had one wish it definitely wouldn’t be for a normal life, whatever one of those is. But to not need to fight, not need to track down and kill Hell’s spawn because they’re no longer a threat, that would be sweet.

  ‘Luke?’

  ‘Sorry, bro’. What would you wish for?’

  ‘A Hilton.’

  It throws Luke because it isn’t what he’s expecting. ‘What?’

  ‘A Hilton hotel. Indoor pool, gym, bar, restaurant.’ It’s weird. ‘Hey, it’s a valid request.’

  ‘Not saying it isn’t.’ And now he knows what he would wish for. ‘I want a house.’

  Matt gawps
at him. ‘I think that’s what we got.’

  ‘I mean, for you and me. A nice house, with a lawn and a back yard. Even a white picket fence.’

  ‘No picket fence.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay.’ He shrugs. ‘Can I have a garage full of power tools?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How about a garage full of weaponry?’

  ‘I want not to need weapons. That's kind of the point.’ But it sounds almost perfect for a pipedream. ‘That’s what I want,’ he finishes, leans over the table and takes his shot. He pots a ball, just not one of his.

  He feels Matt’s hand brush his waist. ‘Think we could settle down?’

  No, he doesn’t, not really, even if he has considered it now and again, imagined what it would be like to live in a small town with bad winters, to get a job as a mechanic, spend his evenings drinking in a bar and his nights figuring out just how far he and Matt can go before it got weird. If it ever got weird. But even if the war is over he seriously doubts everything that ever escaped from Hell has been sent or pulled back down. Their particular skills will still be needed. There’s never any rest for those who know what they’re doing.

  Matt’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. ‘Me neither.’ He takes his final shot and pots the 8-ball. ‘Yes!’ It’s a small celebration but it takes their minds off their hypothetical and fundamentally pointless conversation. Except that it’s set Luke’s mind running about the potential possibilities of this place they’ve found themselves in. He isn’t sure what he would do with those possibilities if they really existed.

  Eventually they start back to the house. As he suspects it’s a five minute walk, just like Joe and Gabe said.

  ‘I wish we had the car,’ Matt muses as they get close. It’s dark now but there are no stars out. There’s moonlight in the same way there was sunlight, blanket cover across the sky but no actual moon. There’s just enough light to see by so that they don’t trip over their own feet while they’re walking but they have no clue as to where it’s coming from.

  ‘We have the car. It’s parked behind the house.’ It’s a long-shot, and Luke doesn’t elaborate despite Matt’s pointed, curious look. When they arrive they walk around back to find the Mustang parked on a concrete standing close to the fence. It’s useless, of course, because Luke’s almost certain there isn’t anywhere to go. He suspects they would end up five minutes away from the house even if they drove for hours. But that's hardly the point. ‘Did I do that?’

  Matt's poking the driver's side door like he isn't sure it's real. ‘I don't know. It might have been here all along.’

  It’s comforting in one way, seeing it, but in another it's freaky, the start of an astonishing power rush. ‘And the roadhouse?’

  Matt looks at him over the car. ‘You didn't get the Ferrari.’

  That's a good point. ‘I didn't... need the Ferrari. I don't need it. But we needed the roadhouse to relax, chill out, play a couple of games and grab some beers. I needed that stone you said I didn’t pick up to throw at the place to prove it was real. You needed real coffee. The car’s been an escape route, rescue, shelter, it’s been with us years.’

  Matt rests his elbows on the Mustang’s roof, arms stretched, palms up. ‘Okay. So what else do we need?’

  Luke leans over the car and reaches out one hand, pushing his fingers into the sleeve of Matt’s shirt to stroke the inside of his wrist. He can feel his brother’s heartbeat.

  ‘Proof. Something big. Something that can't just be coincidence or chance.’ The roadhouse is from their memories, like the espresso machine, Grandma Nancy and her knitted toys. ‘The wine cellar.’

  Matt curls his fingers around Luke’s wrist, warm and just a little bit arousing. ‘What wine cellar?’

  ‘The one in the basement at Uncle Harold’s place. Remember?’

  As kids, Matt and Luke adored their Uncle Harold. He was one of those family members who wasn’t related by blood but still referred to as ‘Uncle’ not only by them but by their parents too. A sworn bachelor at the age of sixty, Harold lived in a tiny coastal town north of Los Angeles, in a Craftsman house that he maintained with an enthusiasm bordering on obsession. He was retired although no one ever said from what. Luke liked to pretend he was once an assassin, a gun for hire. Matt thought he’d worked for the Government in some secret guise. He surfed, he collected fine wines, and he played in a small band every Friday night down at Lenny’s Laundromat where he did his washing. When Matt and Luke’s parents wanted a week away without them, they were deposited with Uncle Harold and spent days at the beach and nights playing hide and seek in the extensive wine cellar under the house.

  ‘You think just because you say that, there’s now a wine cellar in the basement of this house?’

  Luke holds up his free hand. ‘Just testing a theory. Let’s find out.’

  ~..~

  After trying several different foods, they’ve dropped a steak on the floor next to the hole in the stairs and several little wool creatures are nibbling at it happily. The animated toys haven’t tried to attack anyone and Joe’s made Gabe promise he won’t maim any more of them unless they turn nasty. Rick asked Grandma Nancy as nicely as he knew how to stop knitting but she just replied, ‘Oh, I can’t do that, dear. They’re for the orphaned children, you see.’

  No one wants to tell her that they’re coming to life as ravenous things with teeth. No one wants to find out what her reaction would be. Heart attack or a smile, they’re both bad. No one wants to deal with the possibility that she knows what she’s creating.

  Joe’s looking up recipes for peppercorn sauces in a book he’s found in one of the cupboards. He hasn't mentioned Luke and Matt's revelations again – either of them – and Rick’s glad no one’s brought the subject up. He’s got enough on his mind without worrying if two guys who’ve been fighting horror their whole lives should or shouldn’t be making the floorboards creak together no matter what else they are to each other. As far as he’s concerned, it’s just sex. At least someone's getting some.

  He cleans out the grate, sweeps up the ash from the fire the night before and sets another, setting the kindling and the logs and feeding the flames until they catch. He’s doing it for Emilie. Ever since they arrived here he’s felt hot, too hot. The others don’t feel it. Emilie stayed close to the fire last night until she went to bed, Gabe kept his coat on until the place warmed up and Joe’s spent most of the time slaving over a hot stove. Presumably it’s making him happy. Rick’s too hot within thirty seconds of the fire taking hold and gets up, away from the heat. But as he backs away a single impression comes unbidden into his mind like a flash from a camera; there one moment, gone the next. It leaves behind an imprint, a blurred idea, vanishing too quickly for him to get anything more than a suggestion of heat and pain. It’s like a dream on the edge of waking and he doesn’t know what it means.

  ~..~

  ‘Where have you two been?’ Joe grouches when Matt and Luke arrive back at the house. He's obviously still pissed off at them but Luke doesn't rise to it. They haven't answered to anyone since they were kids and they're as far from starting now as they've ever been.

  ‘To the bar down the road.’

  ‘There isn't a bar down the road. There isn't anything down the road.’ But the seed of hope in his voice isn't difficult to miss.

  ‘Something else too. There's a wine cellar in the basement.’

  ‘What?’ He looks up from whatever’s simmering in the small saucepan on the hob. ‘There isn't even a basement.’

  They lead the way into the hall and Matt unlatches the new door under the stairs, letting it swing open for dramatic effect. Gabe’s first up off the couch, eyes going wide.

  ‘You're serious? How did we miss this?’

  ‘We didn’t.’ Joe’s voice is flat but he’s still through the low doorway and heading down the narrow spiral iron stairs before Matt and Luke who follow behi
nd to the stone floored cellar. It has the same dimensions as the ground floor of the house. The air is cool, the perfect temperature possibly. Rows of handmade floor-to-ceiling wooden racks, stacked between weight bearing pillars, hold bottles resting on their sides. The question of whether or not there's a bar down the road is shelved for the time being as Gabe and Joe move between the racks in reverent quiet, speaking in whispers.

  Emilie reaches the base of the stairs, stepping around Luke.

  ‘What the fuck...?’

  Joe peers out from the end of an aisle with a frown. ‘Ssh!’

  She rolls her eyes, making Luke smile. ‘It's a wine cellar, guys, not a church.’

  ‘This is a place of worship,’ Gabe corrects her from somewhere in the far left aisle.

  ‘It wasn't here before,’ Emilie shoots back. Luke nods at her. She's right.

  Like the roadhouse, this place has been recreated directly from their memories. And whatever’s doing it is getting better, because while the roadhouse is incredibly similar to The Gates of Hell, this is a perfect replica. An aficionado of wine, Uncle Harold delighted in taking them down to the cellar to show them his new acquisitions and to explain to them why some wines were worth thousands of dollars while others were worthless. They never listened, but they did love playing in the cool dark and they took in some of the names of the grapes, vineyards even the odd wine maker just by way of natural osmosis. So while Luke’s certain there will be some duds in the collection, he’s equally sure there will be a few bottles to get excited about.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Apparently there are. ‘A 1959 Mouton Rothschild!’ Gabe is holding the bottle like it’s a new born, staring at it like a proud new father. ‘Beat that.’