Hellhole

by Gina Damico

  Max went still.

  “Security camera.” She pointed at the ceiling. “I see everything.”

  A curious combination of feelings began to flush and swirl around inside Max, the human toilet. He counted the emotions as they drifted by: shame, guilt, fear, and that same overwhelming sadness he’d felt at the top of Ugly Hill the night he dug the hole.

  And then Max did something he hadn’t done since that night when he was fifteen, when his mom got real bad and had to be rushed to the hospital, drifting in and out through the revolving door of uncertain death for an agonizing twelve hours.

  He put his head down on the counter and started to cry.

  It was too much to deal with. Paul, Mom, Lore, Burg, Audie, this. He couldn’t shoulder all of these burdens on his own, couldn’t handle the possibility that every move he made was the wrong one, the ax balancing precariously over his head, ready to fall at any moment and destroy him, destroy his mom, destroy every effort he’d made to keep their small, broken family together and give them some semblance of a normal life—

  And all because of a stupid plastic cat.

  Through his quiet sobs, Max could tell that Stavroula had gone very still. Her hesitation was palpable—he felt her lightly touch his shoulder, then immediately draw back, unsure about what she was supposed to do in this situation.

  “Is okay,” she said after a moment, patting him on the head. “Don’t cry, pethaki mou.”

  Max looked up at her, his face tear-streaked and red. “I’m sorry, Roula,” he said haltingly, hiccups jumping between each word. “I’m sorry I stole the cat. It was for my mom. I thought she’d like it, but I couldn’t afford it. I just—I made a mistake, and I understand if you need to fire me, but please don’t. Please. I need this job. I don’t know where else to go.”

  At this last admission, one that seemed to sum up the mess his life had become in the past couple of days, another sob escaped from somewhere deep and blubbered out of his mouth. He was a quivering, wretched mess. If this had happened at school, he never would have heard the end of it.

  Thankfully, there were no witnesses. Though Max had a feeling that even if there had been, he wouldn’t have cared. This thing stirring inside him had been a force of nature, a twisting, feral serpent nipping at his throat. He couldn’t have stopped it if he tried.

  Stavroula was still rubbing his hair. “I no fire you,” she said. “You work overtime. No other teenagers work overtime. Trust me, I look.”

  Max sniffed and raised his head. “Really?” he said. “I’m not fired?”

  She gave him a rare smile. It looked strange on her face, like food that had splattered there without her knowledge. “No,” she said. “No, you good boy.”

  She said it with such conviction that Max nearly believed her. He’d always thought of himself as a good person, but with everything that had happened lately, he’d started to feel that that wasn’t true anymore. Or maybe it had never been true to begin with.

  Because just as soon as the relief had rushed in, it rushed out once again, faster than a rip tide.

  Because the thought he was now thinking wasn’t: Yes. Yes, I am a good person.

  It was: I must have miscalculated the angle of the security camera.

  I won’t make that mistake again.

  Fairy-tale Beginning

  STAVROULA LET HIM OUT OF WORK right then and there. Immediately he rode over to Just Glue It, parked his bike, and walked into the store. It remained unchanged from the last time he’d been in there to buy modeling plaster, months ago. Maybe a year.

  “May I help you?”

  He looked up from the potholder loom kits. “Lore. Hey.”

  A few seconds’ pause.

  “Can I interest you in one of our brand-new sparkle bead sets?” she said flatly, dusting a languid hand over a display of boxes. “They come in two styles, Glitterific and Dazzlicious.”

  “Uh, no. Listen, I got out of work early, and I was hoping we might be able to go do a little more house hunting tonight.”

  “Glitterific it is.” She picked up a box and headed for the cash register, giving her head a sharp nod to get him to follow.

  “I get off in a half-hour. Meet me out back,” she said in a low voice as she rang him up. “That’ll be five dollars and eighteen cents,” she said, louder.

  He fumbled in his pocket for some cash, but she waved for him not to. Instead, she bent down, picked up a bunch of papers, and shoved them into his hands. “Here,” she whispered. “I already did some research.”

  “Honeybrook Hills?” He looked at the map on top. “That fancy-schmancy neighborhood up in the hilly part of the woods?”

  “Yes. Cash or credit?”

  “Uh, cash.” He lowered his own voice. “This is awesome,” he said with genuine gratitude. “Thank you, Lore. Seriously. And, uh, thanks for the beads.”

  Lore handed him the bag. “Have a Glitterific day.”

  A half-hour later Lore emerged into the alley behind the store. “Why’d your boss let you out early?” she asked Max.

  “I don’t know, I guess she could tell that I was stressed. She gave me the next few days off, too.” That last part was true. After the crying incident, Stavroula had insisted that he take a break. The words “nervous breakdown” may have been bandied about, but he wasn’t about to tell Lore that.

  As they rode, Max caught only bits and pieces of what she was saying, but he thought it went something like this:

  “The urgency of this situation requires one thing that, heretofore, we have not considered.”

  “Heretofore?”

  “Strategy,” she said. “We can’t go at this thing all willy-nilly, just picking houses at random. We need a plan of attack. We need to do our research.”

  “Research?”

  “There an echo out here?” She rode up closer to him. “Yes, research. Real estate listings.” At the edge of the development, she pulled off to the side of the road. “Now,” she continued once Max came to a stop next to her, “under the cover of darkness, we are going forth to investigate said real estate listings. Sound good?”

  “Sounds amazing.” Max was looking at her with such admiration, he almost pictured some cartoon hearts floating up from his head. “I can’t believe you did all that for me.”

  “I’m neck-deep in this now too. So it’s not just for you.”

  Tom Hanks would have grabbed her around the waist, dipped her down low, and planted a big one right on her lips. But Max was no Tom Hanks. And that sort of intricate choreography was just a tad beyond his grasp at the moment.

  They stashed their bikes behind the flowery, elaborate Honeybrook Hills sign that may as well have said ATTENTION: RICH PEOPLE LIVE HERE. Max clicked on his keychain flashlight, which Lore immediately seized and pointed at a piece of paper that she’d produced.

  “I printed out a satellite image,” she said.

  “Wow. Where’d you get that?”

  “Google Maps.”

  “Oh.”

  She showed Max the layout of the neighborhood. The road snaked into the woods in long, wide curves, like the path of a river. Houses were widely spaced out; so spaced out, in fact, that from where Max and Lore were standing at the turnoff from the main road, they couldn’t see any at all.

  They began walking down the street, making sure to stay just out of range of the streetlights. “Aren’t these people going to get suspicious?” Max asked, eyeing a gigantic mansion with a sports car in the driveway. “Of two obviously not-wealthy kids scoping out their neighborhood on a night that is not Halloween? And one of them is holding a crowbar? In a menacing way?”

  Lore strode on. “Nothing with googly eyes can be menacing.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Max said, walking faster to catch up with her. “Cookie Monster can get a little demented when he’s jonesing for his next snickerdoodle fix.”

  “Snickerdoodle Fix sounds like one of those creepy educational bands for children that turns out to
be composed entirely of pedophiles.”

  Max laughed. “You, Lore, are the best person I know at sucking the fun out of any conversation.”

  “You, Max, have just given me the greatest compliment I have ever received.”

  Max blushed, put his head down, and kept walking.

  “There,” said Lore after a few minutes. “That house up there, with the fountain out front. I read online that these people went broke and got foreclosed, or something.”

  “Or something?” Max stopped in his tracks. “Wait, we’re just going to break into a house without knowing any of the details?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you even know what ‘foreclosed’ means?”

  “Not really. Do you?”

  Max opened his mouth, then closed it, then repeated the process.

  Eventually he settled on, “Something to do with the banks?”

  She sighed and pulled out a pen. “Here, here, and here,” she said, marking three houses on the map. “These are the houses that are up for foreclosure sale. So these are the ones we’re going to check out first.”

  Max gaped. “How do you know all this?”

  “There’s this brand-new thing called the Internet, Max. They’ve got it on computers and everything, you don’t even have to put a nickel in the slot. It’s real nifty.”

  Max gnawed on the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t what one would call well informed on the socioeconomic issues of the day, but something felt wrong about taking advantage of people who had fallen on hard times.

  Then again, something felt wrong about everything he was doing these days.

  “Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Let’s go.”

  Lore determined, through various methods that Max didn’t want to ask about, which of the house’s entryways would be the easiest to breach: a windowless door leading into the three-car garage. “This outer door will be locked,” she said, “but the door into the house probably won’t.”

  Since the moment he’d arrived at the Honeybrook Hills sign, Max had begun to sweat in all sorts of odd places. For example, his neck. “What about the alarm system?” he asked, wiping his throat.

  “The power’s probably been disconnected.”

  “There are way too many ‘probablys’ in this plan of yours.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  They were at the garage. Lore jimmied the crowbar into the gap where the door met the jamb and gave it a strong pull.

  It popped open.

  Max closed his eyes and shoved his fingers into his ears, waiting for a siren to decimate his hearing, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes. Lore was standing in the middle of the garage, tapping the crowbar against her open palm.

  “You coming?”

  Max hustled inside, clicked on his flashlight, and closed the door behind him lest any of the neighbors still left on this street were to start taking an interest in the safety of their neighborhood. As Lore had predicted, the interior door was not locked, so they easily turned the knob and were deposited into a hallway that led to a stark, modern living room, complete with bay windows, built-in speakers, and a porch leading to a sauna.

  “Geez,” Max said. “So this is how the other half lives.”

  “And this isn’t even including any furniture,” Lore said, drawing a finger over the spotless white walls. “Picture it with a 3D TV, leather couches, and—I don’t know, a family of stuffed unicorns.”

  Max crossed the room and looked out onto the spacious deck. “It’s definitely nice enough for Burg,” he said. “Although the view isn’t great—”

  “Um—”

  “—and I don’t see a hot tub—”

  “Max.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I interest you in a set of used needles and a ziplock bag of questionable origin?”

  Max followed Lore’s gaze to a pile of dirty rags in the corner, upon which was strewn a colorful assortment of drug paraphernalia.

  “Oh, shit.” Max recoiled, his sneakers screeching as he staggered across the hardwood floors. He looked at Lore. “We gotta get out of here.”

  “Are you sure?” Lore said with a teasing smile. “I think free drugs are a perk that Burg would greatly appreciate.”

  “Lore!”

  “Ugh, fine. You’re no fun.”

  They made a hasty exit, then sprinted up the street. The next house on Lore’s map had been partially demolished; with a discouraged grunt, she drew an X over it.

  The third and final house was a hulking blue behemoth with pointed spires and a few stained-glass windows. “Looks like a church,” Lore said.

  Max nodded. “I bet this one has a hot tub.”

  “I hope this obsession with hot tubs is just a temporary—”

  “Hey!” someone yelled.

  That someone was pulling up in a polished white Mercedes. Its driver’s side window rolled down to reveal a pointy, face-lifted woman with fierce eyebrows and jagged red lips.

  “Oh, shit,” Max said under his breath. His wrists began to sweat.

  “Calm down,” Lore said. “Let me handle this.”

  The woman stuck her head out and looked the two of them up and down. Max, watching their squat, distorted reflection in the impossibly shiny car, suddenly saw them as other people must see them—Max in his ratty sneakers and old T-shirt, Lore in her bedazzled uniform for a school she no longer attended, Russell Crowebar barely hidden beneath her skirt. At best, they must have looked crazy, and at worst, criminal.

  “What are you kids doing here?” she asked.

  “Selling Girl Scout cookies,” Lore deadpanned.

  “Where do you live?”

  “How many boxes should I put you down for?”

  The woman squinted and pushed her head out of the window. “Lore Nedry? Is that you?”

  Lore was unfazed. “No.”

  The woman scowled at them, clicking her tongue. “If you’re not gone by the time I get back, I’m calling the police.”

  “Box of Thin Mints, then. You got it, ma’am! Thank you for supporting America’s future!” She gave the car a jaunty wave as it pulled away.

  Max looked at her. “Who was that?”

  “The mom of a girl I went to Westbury Prep with,” she said. “Lots of them live in this neighborhood.”

  Something uncomfortable occurred to Max. He wished it hadn’t, but now he couldn’t unthink it. It wouldn’t go away until he asked.

  “Um,” he started, “Westbury Prep is expensive, isn’t it? How did you . . .”

  He let it hang in the air.

  When Lore spoke, her voice was flat. “How could I afford to go there if I live in a trailer park?”

  Max was now sweating out of every pore he had. “Yeah.”

  “I had a wealthy benefactor.”

  “What does that mean? You got a scholarship?”

  Lore paused before she answered. “I grew up next door to a kid named Noah. We were best friends, just like you and Audie.” She paused again, then continued. “He was poor like me, but then his dad developed some new software and sold it for a shitload of money. Off they moved to the other side of town, to a neighborhood even fancier than Honeybrook Hills. His parents insisted that Noah transfer to Westbury Prep, which he did, on one condition: that they pay for my tuition, too.”

  “Wow,” said Max. “What about your parents?”

  “What about my parents?”

  “Were they, like, okay with it?”

  “They don’t give two shits where I get my education. Or if I even get one at all. Though they did raise a pretty big stink about paying for the uniform.”

  “Oh. Are they—”

  “White trash?” She nodded tersely. “Yeah. They’re white trash.”

  That wasn’t what Max was going to ask, and they both knew it, but at least now he had confirmation that Lore didn’t get along with her parents and a reason why no one seemed to care whether she was out late at night breaking into people’s houses.

  “The
n,” he said, wildly uncomfortable, “why’d you transfer back to E’ville?”

  “Tuition ran out,” Lore said, speaking with a finality that suggested Max drop it immediately.

  So he did. “Maybe we should go,” he said. “That woman—”

  Lore shook her head. “She’s bluffing. Come on, let’s hit one more.”

  She marched on toward the house. Max spent so much time throwing worried glances up and down the street that by the time he caught up to her, she’d already forced her way in.

  “Vaulted ceilings,” she said once Max had shone the flashlight inside, elegantly indicating the walls like a seasoned real estate agent. “South-facing, plenty of light. Enjoy dazzling views of the lake from your private patio—”

  Max made a face. “What’s that smell?”

  “—with a stereo sound system that plays soothing white noise round the clock —”

  “Seriously, what is that?”

  “How should I know?” She walked to the end of the foyer and into the kitchen. “Breakfast nook,” she called back to Max. “Dual dishwasher.”

  Max followed her. “It’s getting stronger, Lore.”

  “Stainless steel refrigerator.” She pulled it open, then frowned at its emptiness. “All out of caviar. Shame.”

  Max investigated a cupboard. “What if it’s bad food or something?”

  “Electric stove, garbage disposal—ooh, this has got to be a walk-in pantry,” she said, putting a hand on a doorknob. “Wanna bet?”

  Max put his hand over his face. “Ugh, it’s really bad right here.”

  “Five bucks says it’s a walk-in pantry.”

  “Lore, don’t.”

  She slowly turned the knob and peeked her head in.

  “Ha! Pantry!” She flung the door wide, exposing a room walled with shelves. “I told you—”

  The odor almost bowled them over. Rotten food, decaying fruit, and, on top of that, something came scuttling out between their legs, onto their shoes—one fell onto Max’s head, everywhere at once—

  “Roaches!” he cried.

  The infestation swept out of its pantry home in a wave of solid insect. Max flailed about, throwing his arms up over his head in an amusing but ineffectual attempt to fend off the attack. He was vaguely aware of Lore screaming as well, but her cries disappeared into the background as the primal panic began to take hold. They were so fast! So disgusting!