Hellhole

by Gina Damico

  Max swallowed. Could that be possible?

  “Beautiful home you’ve got here,” he said. “I like all the”—he gestured helplessly at the glassy-eyed animal heads—“death.”

  The man snorted. “It’s my father’s place. Was my father’s place.”

  Shit.

  “Oh?” Max said shakily.

  “All he left me was this goddamn eyesore of a cabin.” The man spat onto the floor. “Soon as I sell it, I’m outta here.”

  “You’re selling it?” Max repeated for Burg’s benefit.

  “What’d I just say? Listed it last week.”

  For a brief, insane moment, Max was hopeful. He can sell it to me! he thought. Then: Wait, I don’t have enough money to buy a mansion. Then: Even if I did, I’m only seventeen. Then: And it needs to be stolen, not bought. And finally: I really have to pee.

  Max started fiddling with his hands again, tearing up hangnails until he bled. He wondered if Lore was off getting help. But what could she say? That she’d broken into a house and the owner had the gall to call the police and report it? Lore wasn’t that brainless.

  Make a run for it, Shovel, Burg said with—was it concern in his voice?

  Max faked a cough. “No way,” he whispered in the midst of it.

  What’s he going to do, shoot you? No one’s going to buy a house with bloodstained wood floors. He’s just trying to scare you.

  Max felt sick. Was Burg right? If the man had shot that carton of milk, he could have picked off both Max and Lore, real quick and easy. If he was going to shoot Max, he would have done it by now.

  If he wanted to kill you, Burg confirmed, he would have done it already.

  It still seemed like a risk. Max would have to be fast, graceful, and coordinated, three things he had never been all at the same time.

  I’ll talk you through it, Burg said. Max had never heard him sound this serious before. Listen carefully. Stand up fast, like you just remembered you have to be somewhere.

  Max jumped to his feet, his body so wound up it couldn’t sit still anymore. The man stood up just as fast. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Sorry,” said Max. “Leg cramp.”

  Now inch slowly toward the deck. He should match your movements, like you’re circling each other. You want him right in front of the fireplace—that’s the best spot for him to be when you bolt, since the coffee table will be in his way.

  Max inched another centimeter to his right.

  The man inched another centimeter to his right.

  Is he in front of the fireplace?

  “Yeah,” Max whispered.

  There were a series of grinding noises.

  Then a loud twang.

  Max watched in shock as the large deer head above the fireplace came crashing to the floor, taking the man down with it.

  For a moment, everything was still.

  Then a groan sounded from the floor. Carefully stepping around the sofa, Max held his breath until the man came into view.

  He was flat on his back. A dark stain slowly blossomed out from his chest, where Deerzilla’s antlers had sunk in deep. His unseeing eyes stared up at the ceiling.

  Oh God.

  Max had never in his life been so utterly horrified. He trembled—his whole body shook, a chill furiously working its way up his spine, then back down again.

  Did it work? Burg asked gleefully.

  It took Max a few seconds to respond. “Did what work?”

  My Scooby-Dooby booby trap!

  Max just stood there, stunned. It was impossible. Then again—if Burg could telekinetically lift Max and throw him across the room, why couldn’t he do something like this?

  Did it land on his head? Burg asked. Did he run around in a comical manner looking like a deer?

  Max balled his hands into fists. “No!” he yelled. “He got impaled by the antlers!”

  Burg paused.

  Well, damn, he said eventually. That’s not comical at all.

  “No! It’s not!”

  Don’t worry, I’ll pull it off next time. The hardware probably just needs a few tweaks.

  With that, the buzzing in Max’s head went silent.

  Swallowing the strangled lump in his throat, Max knelt down and felt for the man’s pulse. Nothing. He put his head on the floor, careful to avoid the pooling blood, and tried to look beneath the body. The antlers had skewered him all the way through, poking a hole in the bearskin rug.

  Max got up again and began pacing.

  Oh my God. Oh my God. He’s dead. A man is dead and it’s all my fault.

  Well, the other side of his brain said, not completely your fault.

  But Burg never would have been in this house if it weren’t for me!

  And, a smaller, meaner chunk of his brain said, the police are coming. If all they find is you standing next to a dead body, that’s kind of a dead giveaway, isn’t it? And even if you leave, they’ll know someone was here—the door was broken into, your fingerprints are all over the place . . .

  But, sniveled another, more sinister slice of his brain, now Burg can stay in the house indefinitely. Everyone will think that this guy decided to keep the family home instead of selling it. That he took after his father and became a hermit, a solitary person who never went into town.

  Because the house, said the scabbiest, worst part of Max’s brain, is the key to it all.

  No house, no cure. No anything.

  You need to keep this house at all costs.

  HIDE THE BODY.

  Max was breathing harder and harder now. He felt like he was going to pass out.

  Police sirens sounded in the distance.

  He had to make a decision.

  For Mom, all parts of his brain chanted in unison, repeating it like a mantra as he dragged the corpse across the floor. For Mom, for Mom, for Mom.

  Snare

  THE DOORBELL RANG.

  Max unclutched his hands from the plaid sofa and stood up. He willed himself to stop shaking. Assured himself that the blood underneath his fingernails looked very plausibly like his own, as if it had come from a ripped hangnail.

  He opened the front door, the very picture of calm.

  Chief Gregory frowned. “Max? What are you doing here?”

  Max let out a charming laugh. “Funny story, Chief G.”

  Max proceeded to weave a tale of great deceit. He didn’t even have to try. The words flowed from him as if preordained, as if he’d memorized an Oscar-winning script. He’d run into Mr. O’Connell Jr. at the pep rally, see, and the man had asked him for help because the moving company he’d hired had fallen through. It seemed Mr. O’Connell Jr. had a bad back, so he offered Max a hundred bucks to help him move some of his father’s things out of the house.

  Chief Gregory chuckled. “Well, you’ve always had strong arms,” he said. “All that digging.”

  “Seems it’s finally paying off, sir,” Max said humbly.

  Chief Gregory’s brows furrowed. “But the call we got from O’Connell was about someone breaking in. And the—” He twisted around in the rocking chair to look back at the foyer. “The doorjamb is chipped. Consistent with the use of a crowbar.”

  Max shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that, sir. I’ve been upstairs hauling boxes.”

  Chief Gregory tapped his hat against the arm of the rocking chair. “Where’d you say Mr. O’Connell went again?”

  “Hunting, he said.” Max indicated the empty space on the gun rack. “I came down for a glass of water and he was getting ready to leave. To be honest, sir, he seemed a little . . . well, drunk. He rearranged all the carpets, for some reason.” Max pointed at the series of Oriental rugs that now formed a trail to the deck, hiding the bloodstains. The bearskin rug, of course, was stashed in the basement, along with Deerzilla himself. “And when I went to pour myself a glass of water, I saw an empty whiskey bottle in the trash. It’s still there, if you want to check,” he said, neglecting to add that he’d flushed the actual wh
iskey down the toilet.

  Chief Gregory looked at the open liquor cabinet, which Max had artfully arranged to look as if it had been raided. “Still,” the chief said, drumming his fingers. “It’s an oddly specific call.”

  “You don’t think he was going to try to frame me for something, do you?” Max said, mock horror on his face. “Calling you about a trespasser, then here I am, and he’s gone?”

  “Why would he do a thing like that?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, he was hammered.”

  Chief Gregory scratched his chin. “Odd ducks, the lot of them,” he said. “Threw a lot of money at the town, but they weren’t the nicest people around.” He glanced at the gun rack. “Haven’t seen the son in years. Hope he’s not staying long.”

  “Long enough to make a fake call and waste the police’s resources, sir.”

  The chief laughed, then stood up. “All right. We’ll chalk this one up to idiocy and call it a night. I’ll stop by tomorrow to check up on everything and give O’Connell a piece of my mind.”

  “He’d be lucky to have it, sir.”

  Chief Gregory walked to the sliding glass door, squinting outside. “On the other hand, maybe I should track him down. Out there at night, under the influence—could hurt himself.”

  Max held his breath. The man’s body lay outside on the deck, not ten feet from where they stood.

  Chief Gregory’s phone rang.

  He took a few steps away from the door and answered it. “Hello? Hey, sweetie. No, I’m on a call—actually, Max is here—”

  He listened for another few seconds, during which Max could hear Audie bubbling excitedly on the other end; then he said, “Sure, I’ll be there in a few.” He hung up and looked at Max. “Audie wants me to pick her up from the pep rally, says she has some exciting news.”

  Thank you, Audie, Max thought. Thank you thank you thank you.

  “Bah.” Chief waved a hand and turned away from the window. “I’m sure O’Connell will be fine. What’s he going to do, freeze to death? It’s eighty degrees!”

  Max smiled.

  The chief put his hat back on. “You need a ride home?”

  “That’d be great, sir.”

  They rode without speaking, with Jimi Hendrix generously stepping in to fill the silence. Chief Gregory spoke only once, at the turnoff for Honeybrook Hills. “Little late for a jog, buddy, don’t you think?”

  Max, who’d been staring at his knees, looked out the window. A bearded figure in a velour tracksuit ran past the car, in the direction of the O’Connell house. He gave Max a smile and a small wave.

  Heading to the slammer, Shove? he piped into Max’s head a moment later.

  “No,” Max whispered under his breath, covered by the music.

  Oh. Was he disappointed? Well, good. That means you can bring more snacks tomorrow. Hey, how’d that guy pull through?

  The road blurred through the windshield as the cruiser shot around a bend. “He’s dead,” Max said, barely moving his mouth. “You killed him!”

  Oh. Oops.

  Max didn’t say anything. He just felt cold all over.

  Oh, come on, Shove. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident!

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  You believe what you want to believe, kid.

  Max’s vision swirled. He put his head against the glass of the window and stared outside, trying not to gag at the reeling landscape. “How did you even do it?” he asked, breathless.

  He could almost hear Burg smiling.

  Just knocked a few screws loose.

  Outside the stadium, Audie skipped over to the passenger side of the car but stopped once she saw Max’s ghostly face within.

  “I’ll explain later,” he mouthed to her.

  Confused, she continued on to the back seat and hopped in.

  “Hey, baby!” Chief Gregory boomed as she put on her seat belt. “How did it go?”

  “Amazing!” she bubbled. “Guess what, guess what: The recruiters who are in town for homecoming were there, and one of them wanted to talk to me about their sports journalism program! Like, they were interested in me! And it’s exactly what I’m looking for!” She heaved a contented sigh. “I’m still floating. I can’t believe it was real.”

  Chief Gregory let out a loud whoop while Max turned around in his seat. “That’s great, Aud,” he said, trying to conceal the hoarseness in his voice. “You deserve it.”

  Her bubbliness reduced itself to a simmer. “Where did you run off to?” she asked with a hint of irritation.

  Before Max could answer, Chief Gregory said, “He was up at the old O’Connell place, helping move boxes around.”

  Max made a pleading face at her.

  “Oh, right,” she said carefully, holding Max’s gaze. “You said . . . you were doing . . . that.”

  “Not sure you should keep hanging around that guy, Max,” Chief Gregory said. “You don’t want to get mixed up in something you can’t get out of.”

  Max turned around in his seat and stared out the window, gripping the car door handle so tight his hand went numb.

  Five minutes after he’d kissed his mother good night and three minutes after he threw up, Max heard a knock at the kitchen door.

  He opened the door but didn’t see anything. He took a few steps out into the yard, and there it was, that spiky, palm-tree hair. “Max?” Audie said, stepping out into the light of the back stoop.

  “Hey, Aud.” His voice seemed, to him, strangely cold.

  “Why’d you come home with my dad?” she asked.

  Her scared brown eyes looked up at him—they’d remained unchanged all those years, looking the same as they did when they were little kids chasing after fireflies.

  His, he surmised, were much different now.

  “Audie,” he said, taking care not to let his voice tremble, “whatever happens from now on, I need you to not ask any questions. It’s better if you don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what? What happened, Max?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he focused on the ground, only the ground. “Don’t ask me that, okay? If you don’t ask, I can’t lie to you. And I’d have to lie. You can’t know anything about what happened. It wouldn’t be safe for you.”

  Resolving not to say another word, he pushed past her and went back into the house. Audie stayed behind, reeling.

  “Max!” she called after him, stepping toward the house as he started to shut the door. “What—”

  “I said don’t ask!”

  The door slammed in her face.

  Can’t Stomach

  OVER THE NEXT TEN HOURS Max left his bed sixteen times.

  The first time, he pulled down every blind in the house and locked all the doors.

  The second time, he removed a pile of leftover lasagna from the refrigerator, snuck into his mother’s room while she was sleeping, and placed it onto her nightstand.

  The other fourteen times, he went to the bathroom to vomit.

  “You okay, hoss? You look terrible.”

  “Terrible” didn’t begin to describe the state Max found himself in when he rolled into school around eleven. “Repugnant” was far more accurate, or possibly “subhuman.” Or whatever the word was that described the sort of person who hid another person’s body under the tarp of a hot tub.

  “I’m fine,” Max said to Wall before he could ask any more questions. Then he crumpled up the yellow principal’s office slip sticking out of his locker. Sorry, Principal Gregory, he thought. Not gonna happen.

  In English lit, he bent his head low and kept his eyes on his quiz, which was full of words that didn’t make any sense, questions that danced before his eyes, and names that burned holes into the page. He didn’t know who Horatio was. He didn’t give a single distinct fuck who Horatio was.

  He turned in the paper, blank except for his name at the top. When Mrs. Rizzo called after him to come back into the classroom, Max ignored her and kept wal
king past the other students, immersing himself in the crowd until he got to the safe haven of his locker, which he opened and put his head inside. He closed his eyes, savoring the cool, muted darkness.

  Only five more periods to get through. He could do this.

  “I can’t do this,” he said to the school nurse. “I need to go home.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “Hung over again, are we?”

  “No, I’m not. I swear.” He pulled his shirt out from his chest, puffing some air into it to fan his skin. “I’m sick. One of those twenty-four-hour bug things.”

  She put a hand to his forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”

  “But I—” I can’t eat, he wanted to say. I can’t sleep. I can’t function.

  I’m dying, slowly and arduously, of guilt.

  “You’re fine,” she said. “Get back to class.”

  Max now knew how a zombie lived (or unlived). It was as though someone had taken a belt sander to his senses, dulled them down until they were nothing but wisps of their former selves. He saw the world through dead eyes, barely feeling the touch of other students as they brushed past him in the hall, hearing everything around him as a vague, generic noise from which no distinct sounds could surface. In chemistry he stood over a flask of sulfuric acid for a full minute before the teacher shooed him away, astonished that he hadn’t passed out from the fumes.

  He was sure that every person with whom he came into contact could tell what he’d done, could read it on his face. Their stares would linger a little too long, or they’d pause and glance at his dirty fingernails, beneath which O’Connell’s stubborn blood was still caked. But then they’d just smile and move on, and Max would exhale with relief.

  At lunch he shoved food into his mouth without tasting it. He sat alone, facing the wall, at a table in the far corner of the cafeteria, where he’d arranged open textbooks around him to make it look as if he was studying too hard to be disturbed.

  It worked. No one approached, not Principal Gregory, not Mrs. Rizzo, not even Paul. Max stared at the wall, chewing his cold, unmicrowaved Hot Pocket like cud.