Dark Screams, Volume 5
Page 11
As she approached the playhouse, a rock flew out of the open window, hitting the center of the framed print and shattering the glass.
No, not a rock. One of her mudballs.
Another one came sailing out, this time ripping through the print itself, and Lois heard Janet giggle. Furious, enraged as much by the invasion of privacy exemplified by the appropriation of her mudballs as by the attack itself, Lois dropped the frame and used both hands to grasp the legs of the plant stand. Positioning it like a battering ram, she ran forward, screaming, shoving the top of the stand through the playhouse window.
Inside, Janet cried out, though whether in pain or surprise Lois could not tell. Dashing around the corner, Lois ducked her head and rushed into the small building. The other Realtor was not hurt. In fact, she had taken the plant stand, set it up in a corner, and was placing the potted chrysanthemum on top of it.
“That looks good,” Lois admitted.
Janet stepped back. “It does, doesn’t it?”
Why were they even fighting? Lois wondered. There was no reason for them to be at each other’s throats. They were on the same side. “I have some more things in the car,” she said. “A figurine and a small palm tree. Want me to bring them in?”
“Sure,” Janet said. She smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry about your picture. It would’ve looked good in here.”
“That’s okay.”
“I don’t know what came over me.”
“I started it,” Lois said. “It’s my fault.” She looked at the other woman’s clear, clean face. “Boy, your forehead sure healed up quick.”
Janet waved her away. “That was months ago.”
Months ago?
Was it? She could have sworn it had been only an hour, maybe two, but she’d been fooled by time before and knew she was not a good judge. Months it was, she decided.
Suddenly, she was afraid to leave the playhouse. What if she went out to the street and her car was gone? Even worse, what if another real estate office had a sign on the front lawn?
What if someone had already bought the property?
Panicked, she peered through the window at the house, looking for open draperies, patio furniture that had been put out, any indication that people were living in the home. Nothing like that was visible, but it was only a matter of time, and she turned to Janet. “We need to make more,” she said, nodding toward the balls of hardened earth on the shelf.
The other Realtor nodded, sitting down in the chair, and reached into the purple pail. The mud, as always, was wet and fresh, and Janet withdrew a handful, though she did not seem to know what to do with it. Lois crouched next to her, pulled a dried leaf from the adjacent pail, placed it on the wooden shelf, then grabbed a handful of mud herself, shaping it into a ball and placing it on the leaf. Nodding her understanding, Janet did the same.
They each made three, enough to replace the ones that had been thrown and to take up the space left by the flowerpot that had been moved to the plant stand.
From outside came the sound of voices. Lois glanced out the window, expecting to see yet another real estate agent showing the property, or even to see a now-lived-in house with new curtains on the windows and children playing in the backyard. But the sight that greeted her was unanticipated and far more bewildering. She was staring out at a row of broken washing machines, peeling picnic tables, rusted lawn mowers, and a stack of bicycles. As she watched, she saw a poorly dressed man pass by, pick up an old wrench from atop one of the washing machines, look at it, then put it back in place.
She suddenly knew where they were. A junkyard. Or the as-is yard of a thrift store. Someone had bought the property and the playhouse had been donated.
We’re dead, she thought. We died and we’re trapped here.
But she knew that wasn’t the case. They were not dead, and they could leave at any time—if they chose to do so.
She straightened, looking around the small room. Nothing had fallen off the shelf, the flowerpot was still on the plant stand, and she herself had felt no movement. The mechanics of what had happened eluded her, but the truth of it did not.
There was a loud crack! as something outside hit the top of the wooden roof. Janet was sitting in the chair, and she jumped out of her seat immediately. Lois looked up involuntarily, and there was another crack! followed instantly by another. Something hit the side of the wall, and Lois hurried outside to see what was going on.
It felt good to be able to stand straight instead of hunching over, but the pleasure lasted only seconds. Walking around the side of the playhouse, she saw another playhouse down the aisle, next to a rusted swing set and slide, in front of a gutted motorcycle. In the open doorway stood an old man with a pink plastic bucket of rocks at his feet. He reached down, picked up a pebble, and threw it at her. Lois ducked, but the throw went wide anyway and missed, plinking off a nearby washing machine.
She did not know this man, but she knew his type. She took in his Bermuda shorts, his clashing Izod shirt, his oversized glasses. In her years as a Realtor, she’d dealt with guys like this dozens of times. They were always the sellers, never the buyers, and they were so persnickety and put so many stipulations on every single aspect of the sale that they were a nightmare to work with.
As the old man reached once again into his bucket, Lois considered her options. She could go back inside the playhouse, wait things out, redecorate, make more mudballs, and the next time she emerged, the old man would probably be gone. Or she could confront him. This seemed to be the smarter option, since he seemed intent on attack.
A pebble whizzed by her head, hitting the side of the playhouse.
Operating on instinct, Lois dashed back inside, hurrying over to the shelf. All of the mudballs were hard. She picked one up in each hand and motioned for Janet to do the same. “Wait until he’s closer,” she said, leading the way outside. “Aim for the head.”
They walked around the corner of the playhouse. The old man was indeed moving closer, thinking he was tricky, hiding behind a broken patio awning, then creeping forward with his bucket to peer at them from behind a doorless refrigerator.
Janet cocked her arm and threw. The hard mudball smashed into the old man’s nose, eliciting a sharp cry of pain. Blood poured out, and the old man dropped the rock in his hand to stanch the bleeding. Janet followed up with another hard-thrown mudball, perfectly placed, that struck the sweet spot above the splayed hand, between the eyes.
Their rival went down.
Lois rushed forward, fingers clenched hard around the mudballs in her hands. Standing above the old man, she let him have it, throwing as hard as she could. At such close quarters, the damage was fatal, and he screamed in agony after the first hit, his scream cutting off immediately after the second.
Lois and Janet looked at each other.
“Which one do you want?” Lois asked.
The other Realtor shrugged. “I kind of like where I am.”
Lois nodded. She walked up the junkyard aisle until she reached the other playhouse. It seemed big to her, solidly constructed. The door was shorter, but the roof was taller, and she assumed that she would be able to stand without ducking in the room inside. She turned around. “Good luck,” she told Janet, and without waiting for a response, walked into the playhouse.
It was more fully furnished than she’d expected. The old man must have been here for a while. There was a cushioned love seat instead of a chair, and a low heavily nicked coffee table. The room had two windows instead of one, and on the solid wall opposite the doorway hung framed photographs of a family: the old man with an old woman and a teenage girl. A box pushed next to the wall held pebbles, shells, and various household tools. A baseball bat leaned against the corner.
Lois sat down for a moment on the love seat. Her phone rang. She picked it up. “Hello?” she said, but was greeted with a yawning silence that frightened her. She quickly clicked off.
Outside, the quality of the light shifted. It was still da
ytime—Was it ever night in here?—but it was the orangish heavy light of afternoon rather than the bright morning white of a moment before. She stood. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that the junkyard appeared to be gone, but she restrained herself and did not turn her head to look. Instead, she stepped forward, crouching a little, bracing herself for what she might see.
Taking a deep breath, Lois looked out the window.
For Marty Greenberg and Ed Gorman, with gratitude…
About the Editors
RICHARD CHIZMAR is the founder and publisher/editor of Cemetery Dance magazine and the Cemetery Dance Publications book imprint. He has edited more than a dozen anthologies, including The Best of Cemetery Dance, The Earth Strikes Back, Night Visions 10, October Dreams (with Robert Morrish), and the Shivers series.
BRIAN JAMES FREEMAN is the managing editor of Cemetery Dance Publications and the author of several novels and novellas, along with four short story collections including an eBook-only exclusive that hit #1 on Amazon.com in the United States, the UK, Germany, Spain, and France in the short story categories. His blog and website can be found at BrianJamesFreeman.com.
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