Sick House

by Jeff Strand

  "I'm judging all three of us."

  "Well, if you're going to have yourself a dark night of the soul leave me out of it. Are we just going to sit here or are we going inside to get something to eat?"

  "You could eat?" Maddox asked.

  "I bit off one of her fingers. I think I can stomach a burger."

  "Feel free to go in and have a great big ol' feast if you want. Sorry if I have no appetite. Go on. I'll see you tomorrow."

  "Nah," said Heck. "I guess I'm not hungry."

  "Want me to drop you off at Veronica's?"

  Heck shook his head. "Not horny, either."

  "I wasn't thinking she'd do you at three in the morning."

  "She'll do me anytime. Just take me home."

  "Let's swing by a liquor store," said Fletcher from the back seat.

  "No way," said Maddox. "Nobody gets wasted."

  "What do you think I'll do, confess to my fuckin' pillow?"

  "We were already stupid tonight. Let's not add to it."

  "Whatever."

  "Real mature." Maddox turned on the engine and backed out of the parking space.

  "Bitch got what was coming to her," said Heck. "Anybody who paints their house bright pink like that deserves to die."

  * * *

  Edwin smiled and waved as Maddox walked into the bar. Maddox had spent all night tossing and turning and spitting up bile, and was in no mood to deal with this kid. He sat down across from him in the booth.

  "Damn," Edwin said.

  "Just give me the money."

  "I hear you guys went above and beyond. Cleanup crew had their work cut out for them. If I were the one signing your paycheck, I'd give you a bonus."

  "I didn't get a second of sleep, so is there any chance we could skip the small talk?"

  "Where's your sack?"

  "What sack?"

  "That bag thing. I can't remember the name. Starts with a C."

  "Colostomy bag."

  "Yeah."

  "It was fake. I kept a goddamn knife in it."

  "For real?"

  "Yeah."

  "So was that, like, effective, or just your own private little joke?"

  "I never had cause to stab somebody in the throat, so I can't yet say if it was effective or not. But I'm getting close to that point with you."

  Edwin held up his hands. "Whoa, dude, somebody's kind of cranky, huh? I'd never rip you off, but until you actually have your money, it seems like you'd want to be polite."

  "Are you threatening me?"

  "In what universe did that sound like a threat?"

  "How about you give me my money before I rip your throat out with my fingernails?"

  "The next time my boss has a job, I'm pretty sure you won't get a call."

  "The next time your boss has a job, tell him to shove it up his ass."

  Edwin was silent for a moment, then smirked. "I'll cut you some slack because your eyes look all haunted."

  "Thank you."

  "I guess decorating the walls and ceiling with an old woman changes you. I can respect that you're having a tough time of it. I am going to say that maybe you should change the way you're talking to me, because right now I'd have to bring back a bad report. And that doesn't just impact future jobs." Edwin took a sip of his beer. "See, now I'm threatening you. It's easy to tell the difference because I'm not smiling anymore."

  "All right, I'm sorry," said Maddox, embarrassed by the way his voice almost cracked. "It was a lot uglier than I expected. It's not sitting well with me."

  "Good. That kind of thing should disturb you. Otherwise you're a sociopath." Edwin glanced around the bar, then set an envelope on the table, which Maddox quickly scooped into his lap. "It's all there. If you want to go out to your car and count it, I'll be here until I finish my beer."

  "I trust you," said Maddox, sliding out of the booth. "Sorry again."

  * * *

  Maddox didn't need to check himself in the mirror to know how bad he looked. He'd only been sleeping an hour or two a night for the past week. Couldn't keep food down. Didn't want to talk to anybody. Wasn't even able to maintain enough focus to watch mindless TV shows.

  Weirdly, he wasn't at all worried about being caught. He should've been. Five minutes in, they'd stopped even pretending to be cautious. Heck, at least, had left DNA all over the damn place. But Maddox wasn't concerned. Even when he lay in bed and specifically thought to himself, my partner left DNA evidence all over the scene of a murder, it didn't bother him. The only thing to consume him was the shame and the guilt.

  Why wasn't it the other way around? He didn't give a shit about that lady. Maybe she deserved it, maybe she didn't, but he'd killed people before—including at least one guy that he knew for certain didn't deserve it—without his conscience bugging him. Yet he'd often replay the details of his various crimes in his mind, trying to figure out where he might have slipped up in a way that could lead the cops to him. It was like his brain had been rewired.

  His phone rang. It took him a moment to find it between the couch cushions. When he dug it out, he saw that it was Fletcher. "Yeah?"

  "Hey."

  "Hey."

  Fletcher let out a long sigh. "We shouldn't have done that."

  "No shit, you think?"

  "We have to make it right."

  "Yeah," said Maddox. "We really do."

  Maddox was completely aware of how stupid they sounded. Make it right? What were they going to do, scoop the pieces of the woman together and apologize to the pile? Turn themselves in to the cops? Kill themselves?

  "I want to give the money back," said Fletcher. "I already talked to Heck and he agrees with me."

  Maddox nodded, even though Fletcher couldn't see him.

  "I'm totally on board with that. I don't know if it'll clear my conscience, but it's worth a shot. It's the right thing to do. We'll bring it to the house on Stanford, right?"

  Despite what he was saying, Maddox was not completely on board with that. Giving back the money would not clear his conscience and was not the right thing to do. He'd never heard of the house on Stanford. Part of his mind kept saying What the fuck are you talking about? while another part of his mind thought it all sounded completely rational. Bring the money to the house on Stanford. Of course. That would make all of his problems disappear.

  "I'm so glad you agree with us," said Fletcher, sounding almost tearful with relief.

  "We're in this together."

  "When do you want to do it?"

  "As soon as possible. Are you free now?" Suddenly a better idea occurred to Maddox. "No, wait, now is not the right time. After dark. We should do it as soon as possible after dark."

  "After dark, yes," said Fletcher. "That's exactly what I was thinking."

  "Good. We're in this together. I'll pick you guys up around seven."

  "Perfect. I already spent some of the money, but I'm gonna sell some shit to make sure I've got my share. We'll get through this, man."

  "Yeah, we will. A lot of guys would turn on each other when things got bad like this, but not us. We're sticking together. We're fuckin' brothers."

  "Brothers."

  "It's gonna be fine. We're gonna do the right thing."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The optometrist was the hairiest human being Adeline had ever seen. She wanted to ask him if this meant that werewolves had perfect vision, but she'd just met him and wasn't sure how he'd respond to the joke.

  "Contact lenses can take a little while to get used to," Dr. Velasco told Paige. "But you'll get the hang of putting them in, I promise."

  Paige nodded.

  "The first thing you'll always do is wash your hands. You don't want anything going from your fingers to the lens and then onto your eye."

  Paige turned on the faucet, squirted some soap onto her hands, and washed them thoroughly.

  "It's best to dry them with a lint-free cloth," said Dr. Velasco. "Otherwise you get specks of lint in your eyes, and you don't want that, right?"


  "Nope," said Paige.

  After Paige dried her hands, Dr. Velasco gave her one of the lens packets. "Tear this open and put the lens on your index finger. You'll want to make sure it's not inside out, so what you'll look for are the numbers 1-2-3 on the side. If they're upside-down, the lens is the wrong way."

  "What happens if I put it in the wrong way?" Paige asked.

  "It'll be uncomfortable. You'll feel that it's wrong, but it's better to figure that out before you actually put it on your eye. Do you see the numbers?"

  "It's hard to see them without my glasses."

  Dr. Velasco chuckled. "Yeah, that's kind of a Catch-22, isn't it? You need to be able to see the numbers to put in the contacts that let you see."

  "Okay, I see it. 1-2-3."

  Adeline watched as the optometrist talked Paige through the process of actually placing the contact lens on her eyeball. Paige kept blinking, causing the lens to fold up.

  "Don't get frustrated," said Dr. Velasco. "I've been through this with lots and lots of people. You're doing better than you think you are. We're used to purposely not touching our eyes, so this doesn't come naturally to anybody. It just takes practice. I've seen people your mom's age do a lot worse than you."

  "Your mom's age" was clearly not meant to be an insult—Dr. Velasco looked to be in his fifties—but Adeline was suddenly less inclined to worry about offending him with a werewolf joke.

  On the ninth or tenth try, Paige successfully got the lens onto her right eye. The left lens only took four tries.

  "See? Easier already," said Dr. Velasco.

  Paige blinked a few times then looked at herself in the mirror.

  "What do you think?" Adeline asked.

  "I love them."

  "Excellent," said Dr. Velasco. "You can sleep with them in, but I recommend you take them out every night until you get used to them. It's good to get in the practice of putting them in and taking them out. Speaking of which, let's take them out. What you're going to do is look up, then use your thumb and index finger, and pinch."

  "Pinch?" asked Paige, sounding unsure.

  Dr. Velasco chuckled. "You'll get used to it, I promise."

  * * *

  "Well, who is that stunning lady?" asked Boyd when he came home from work.

  "Do they look cool?" asked Paige, opening her eyes comically wide.

  "They look great. How do they feel?"

  "I can't really tell they're in."

  "Good. It's nice. I can see your eyes better."

  After Paige went into her room, Boyd and Adeline sat down on the living room sofa. "How was your day?" Adeline asked.

  "Tiring. I definitely have more respect for what Mr. Prace went through." He put his arm around her. "I never thought Paige looked bad with glasses. I'm not sure why she wanted to get rid of them."

  "I don't think she wants to look better. I think she wants to look different."

  "Ah, okay. That makes sense."

  "Be ready for her to ask to color her hair."

  "I'm okay with that," said Boyd.

  "Liar."

  "Depends on the color, I guess."

  "What color would bother you?"

  Boyd considered that. "I'm not sure. These days there really isn't any color that's considered particularly strange. Maybe if she went gray so that she looked like an old lady. I suppose blue or green or red would be fine. I mean, I wouldn't encourage it, I hope she sticks with blonde, but I wouldn't try to forbid a color change. It might be that I'm more worried about a really weird hairstyle."

  "Like a Mohawk?"

  "Yeah. Mohawks are fine for the right person, but I don't think it suits her head shape." Boyd coughed.

  "You okay?" Adeline asked.

  He coughed again. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

  "I hope you and Naomi aren't coming down with something."

  "I hope so, too. I don't feel sick, though." He coughed once more, and then got up off the couch. "I'm going to get a drink of water."

  Adeline followed him into the kitchen. Boyd took down a glass and filled it from the faucet. He frowned before he took a drink.

  "What's wrong?" Adeline asked.

  "What's the deal with the bananas?"

  Adeline glanced over at the counter. The bananas had turned completely brown.

  "Oh my God. I just bought those today and they were weren't even ripe yet. They were green. How did that happen?"

  "I forgot to say anything, but the apple you packed me for lunch was rotten inside, too."

  "I went to a different grocery store. There was nothing wrong with the apples when I bought them. I checked. What would make this happen?"

  "I don't know," said Boyd. "Something in the air, maybe?"

  "What in the air? Apples don't rot like that."

  "Heat, maybe? A vent that was pointing right at them?"

  "The milk was in the refrigerator."

  "Then honestly I have no idea. I don't know what would make food go bad. We could go over and see if our neighbors are having the same problem."

  Adeline smiled. "'Hello, we're the Gardners. By any chance is your fruit rotting at a freakishly accelerated speed?'"

  "I've never heard of that kind of thing happening. Maybe local crops are bad or something? That wouldn't explain the milk and bread. Could a whole supplier have been impacted? That doesn't seem likely. I mean, if their refrigeration system failed, the bananas would've been brown before you bought them."

  "Yeah. Like I said, they weren't ripe enough to eat this morning."

  "It feels like we're spending way too much time discussing spoiled fruit, but it's odd, don't you think?"

  Adeline nodded. "Odd as hell."

  "If it keeps happening, we'll call somebody over to check things out."

  "Who would we call?"

  "No clue." Boyd coughed. "Damn, I hope I'm not getting sick. I can't stay home from work my first week, and I don't want to infect everybody there and have them call in sick."

  "You should load up on Vitamin C and go to bed early."

  "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

  * * *

  Adeline was not surprised that Boyd didn't go to bed early. "I should go to bed early," was a common refrain in their household, one often uttered but rarely fulfilled. He didn't cough again—at least not that Adeline noticed—and insisted that he felt totally fine.

  "Are you ready to take your contacts out?" Adeline asked Paige.

  "Yep."

  "Want me to help?"

  "How would you help?"

  "I guess I meant watch."

  "Why would I want you to watch?"

  "I'm trying to be a supportive mother."

  "If you want to stare at me creepily while I take out my contacts, be my guest."

  "You know what? I'm going to do exactly that. Let's go."

  They walked to the bathroom. Adeline stood in the doorway while Paige looked at herself in the mirror. She held her thumb and index finger up to her right eye, pinched, and missed.

  "You're supposed to look up," said Adeline.

  "I know."

  "You didn't look up."

  Paige looked up, pinched, and missed again.

  "It's hard."

  "That's because you're not used to sticking fingers in your eye."

  "It's not as squishy as I thought it would be."

  "If you can tell if your eye is squishy or not, you're pressing too hard."

  "I can't do this while you're talking."

  Adeline shut up. Paige looked up. Pinched. Missed.

  "Dammit."

  "Paige!"

  "I can't get it."

  "That's no reason for that kind of language."

  "I think I'm old enough to say dammit."

  "I think you're not."

  "Whatever. Fudge, then."

  "I'll just leave you alone."

  "Thanks, Mom."

  Adeline walked back into the living room.

  "I liked Paige better with glasses," said Naom
i.

  "Well, promise me you won't tell her that."

  "I won't. Can I get my nose pierced?"

  "Um, how about we start with your ears, honey?"

  "Okay." Naomi grinned. "Paige told me to ask about my nose first so you'd say yes to my ears."

  "Your sister is very clever."

  Several minutes later, Paige stepped into the living room. Her eyes were red.

  "Got 'em out," she said.

  "It'll get easier. It's only day one."

  "Yep. I still like them."

  * * *

  Adeline lay next to Boyd in bed, both of them reading. She set her book on the nightstand and gently ran her hand over his thigh.

  "Yes," she said. "I'm a bit horny. I assume that doesn't disappoint you?"

  Boyd set his own book down. "Actually, I've kind of got a headache."

  "Oh. All right. Do you want me to get you some aspirin?"

  "I took some. It's not helping."

  "Well...okay."

  "It's nothing major," said Boyd. "I just don't feel all that great."

  Adeline could only think of two times during their entire marriage that Boyd had declined sex: once while they were visiting his parents, and once while they were in an empty movie theater. (The movie theater had been a good call, since somebody came in less than a minute after Boyd rejected her advance.) He'd once tried to initiate sex when he had a 103-degree fever.

  "It's all right," said Adeline.

  "I mean, if you're really horny—"

  "Nope. Just a bit."

  "I can try."

  "It's all good."

  "You could pull out the toy box."

  "I am one hundred percent fine. This was really more for your benefit. I didn't know you still weren't feeling well."

  "I'm sure it's no big deal. It's not like I'm dying or anything. Just a little under the weather."

  "Anything I can do?"

  "Nah, I'll be fine in the morning."

  Adeline shut off the light. Actually, the toy box was tempting, but no, those were meant for special occasions, not to compensate for a sick husband.

  Usually they snuggled for a while before they fell asleep, but she didn't want to catch any germs, so she rolled on her side, facing away from him, and closed her eyes.