Charnel House

by Anderson, Fred

  “Young love,” he said. “Ain’t nothing in the world like it, is there?”

  Bobby blushed so furiously he thought his hair might actually turn bright red, but Amy just said, “No sir,” and squeezed his hand so hard it nearly hurt.

  The attendant led them to the front seat in the waiting train, and pulled back a chain so they could climb in and sit down. Amy scooted up against Bobby so that their legs touched, and he stretched his arm across the back of the seat, trying to seem casual. He hoped she couldn’t feel his heart pounding where her shoulder pressed against his chest.

  “Keep your hands inside the car, and don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your parents to see,” the attendant said, and winked at Bobby. He crossed the platform to the control panel and pressed a green button, and with a whirring clank, the cars jerked into motion. “All aboard the love train!”

  Compressed air hissed somewhere and the doors guarding the entrance opened. The train crept into the darkness. Inside the ride it was cooler even than the afternoon, and Amy squeezed closer against him. Her hand brushed the side of his leg and a rubber band connecting his stomach and his nuts seemed to twang, not unpleasantly. Whoever had come up with this ride deserved a medal. He tightened his arm around her. Sighing, the doors swung closed behind them.

  The train hitched along the track, and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom Bobby became aware that the floor of the tunnel had been covered with sand. The walls were painted in various shades of blue to look like the ocean receding to meet the sky on both sides, and overhead, holes had been drilled in the plywood ceiling and tiny white Christmas lights installed to simulate stars. A hidden speaker played a scratchy rendition of surf pounding the beach, which brought a smile to his face. You could almost taste the cheese in here. He smelled strawberry and realized it was Amy’s shampoo, and idly found himself wondering if that same smell was on the back of her neck, too.

  “This is great,” Amy murmured.

  You’re great. “Yeah, it is.”

  She shifted, and again the weird rubber band inside him jangled as if plucked. It felt like one of his nuts actually jumped. It had to be part of being grown up, he thought. For him puberty was just a word they’d talked about in health class. He’d found a couple of downy hairs in his armpits, but nothing down below yet. Not for lack of wishful thinking, even though he wasn’t sure what he’d do with pubic hair if he had it. Feel like a man, he guessed. Life sure was hard to understand sometimes.

  The train lurched around a curve and came to another set of doors that hissed open as it approached. The tunnel came to an end and a room decorated to look like the streets of Venice opened around them. White brick buildings pressed in close and shallow metal troughs, each holding about an inch of water, were lined alongside the track. Lights in the ceiling were aimed down at the water, and the rumble of the train sent wavy shimmering shadows up the fake architecture. The soundtrack for this room was a babbling brook Bobby thought was supposed to be wavelets lapping against the buildings.

  “Pretty,” Amy said.

  “It sure is.” You sure are.

  His hands felt clammy, and the butterflies were breaking free of their cocoons in his stomach again. Quit being such a retard and just do it. Why was this so hard?

  And then she turned her head toward him, her violet eyes looking from his own eyes to his mouth and back again, her full lips slightly parted. They shone wetly in the rippling light. Before he had time to process any of this, she cupped his face between her hands and tilted her head forward to press her lips to his own. The voice clamoring in his head fell silent as a wave of pure electric emotion washed over him and made him forget everything he’d been worried about. He closed his eyes and kissed back, hoping it was the right way. Praying. Thinking absurdly of the fireworks going off at the beginning of Love, American Style. The world contracted around them until there was nothing but boy and girl and kiss.

  He touched the back of her neck with his hand, marveling at its smoothness, the delicate bones beneath. The rubber band inside him thrummed like a locomotive, as if someone were playing an arpeggio on it, and his pants felt strangely tighter. Amy sighed happily, the warm breath from her nose tickling Bobby’s cheek. Some small part of him was disappointed that he hadn’t stepped up and taken charge of this the way a real man would have, but the fact that she initiated the kiss was just more proof in the pudding that she wanted to be his—

  A rough hand forced its way between his legs and gave his crotch a painful squeeze. At the same time, a cold festering tongue parted his lips and slithered into his mouth, twining itself with his own. Tastes metallic, the dispassionate voice in his head noted. Like licking a battery. Fever-hot blisters erupted against his lips and popped in streamers of clotted pus and wriggling worms. The choking stench of decay billowed up around him. As he began to recoil in dreadful slow motion, his eyes snapping open in horror, the smooth neck under his hand thickened and grew leathery, coarse wiry hairs sprouting through the flesh like seedlings. The eyes looking back at him had gone the milky yellow-white of cataracts, the nose collapsed into a bloody hole where blackflies buzzed in furious activity.

  “Gotcha, bucko,” Norman said in his thick, oily voice. The hand between Bobby’s legs clenched and he retched from the bloom of fiery pain in his lower belly. The hobo’s ruined lips peeled back from his black teeth in a feral smile. “So hard! I didn’t know you felt that way about me, kid.”

  Somehow Bobby was in the second car with Norman. Amy was in front of them, her eyes widening in confusion as she registered that she was sitting alone now. Bobby screamed and pistoned the heel of his hand into the hobo’s chest. The force pushed them apart, but he fetched up against the side of the car far too quickly. What had been cozy a moment before had become claustrophobic. Still so close. Just ahead of the train, a new set of doors swung open. Through them, he caught a glimpse of a light-covered model of the Eiffel Tower.

  Norman stood and snatched a fistful of Bobby’s hair in one hand. It felt like someone had doused his scalp in lighter fluid and tossed a match onto it. Bitter tears stung his eyes and he grabbed at the hobo’s leathery arm to ease the pain. But he wouldn’t scream, because he knew that was exactly what Norman wanted. Norman jerked him into the air, dangling him by one arm while he flailed and struggled like a hooked fish.

  “Put him down!” Amy cried, beating at the hobo’s back with her fists.

  “Don’t you know three’s a crowd, Bobby?” Norman whispered, and tossed Bobby over the back of the train.

  He crashed onto one of the metal troughs, flinging up sheets of tepid water. The lip bit fiercely into the small of his back and for a moment white-hot agony drove every other thing from his mind. The train clanked forward, the clacking ratchet of its drive train filling the room. Norman clambered over the front of his car into the one holding Amy. She screamed and tried to jump off, but the hobo caught her by the back of her shirt.

  Bobby rolled away from the track, already trying to get to his feet. He couldn’t breathe. It was like a steel belt had been wrapped around his chest and yanked tight. The area right above his butt where he’d hit the steel trough throbbed like a rotted tooth, and electric bolts of pain streaked down both legs. His nuts felt the size of cantaloupes. Every move he made sent rolling waves of nausea from them up through his lower belly. He lost his balance and stumbled into one of the plywood building settings and it toppled forward, knocking him back to the ground. Squirming, he began to work his way out from under the bulky piece of wood.

  “Say, this is some sweet pussy you left for me, Bobby,” Norman called. His voice sounded distant. “Don’t mind if I do!”

  A fresh scream shattered the cocoon of misery that wrapped him. Bobby jerked his legs from under the facade and struggled to his feet, looking for the hobo. The room had become a cavern, and the train so far from him now it looked like a toy. The open doors that had been so close only a moment before were nearly a football field’s length away. The r
ide isn’t even this big. He sprinted alongside the track as best he could, hunched against the pain that wracked him.

  Norman stood in the front train car facing out the back. He held Amy against him with one hand clenched around her slender neck. The other had disappeared up her shirt, and he rooted around in there like he was searching for treasure... but his yellowed eyes were on Bobby. She fought to get away and he shook her like a rag doll.

  “Stop it!” Yelling caused another flare of pain across his back.

  Making sure Bobby was watching, the hobo ran his tongue into Amy’s ear and she shrieked.

  She sees him. Feels him.

  He wasn’t imagining Norman, and Norman wasn’t possessing anyone. Norman was really here.

  But he was supposed to come for me.

  “Let her go!” he cried, and redoubled his efforts. Each step sent burning needles through his testicles and down his legs.

  Norman laughed and pulled his hand from Amy’s shirt in order to snake it between her legs. She twisted and bucked, her feet beating a hard tattoo on the seat of the car. Fury and terror twisted her features.

  “Nice and tight,” the hobo called. “Just the way I like it. Maybe when I’m done you can have a dip, Bobby, but we’ll need to strap a board to your ass so you don’t fall in!”

  Amy drove an elbow into the hobo’s belly and he belched out an oof! that might have been funny under different circumstances. His grip on her slipped for an instant and she nearly got away, but then Norman balled up his fist and clouted her on the side of the head. She went limp, her arms dropping loosely to her sides.

  This time Bobby was the one who screamed.

  He was gaining on the train, but not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough. It passed through the open doors and the last thing Bobby saw before they slammed shut behind it was Norman pawing at the button of Amy’s jeans.

  14

  Bobby crashed into the metal doors an instant after they closed. He might as well have been running into a brick wall for all the good it did. They rattled, but otherwise did not budge. He stepped back and tucked his shoulder down, then tried again with the same result. Panic bloomed in him like a poisonous flower, threatening to swallow him whole.

  The room had shrunk back to its normal size. The ceiling, which had reached almost to the heavens a moment ago, was back to its normal height, and the side walls had closed in around him. It was still hard to breathe, only now it wasn’t just because of the tightness in his chest.

  “Help!” he cried, banging his fists against the plywood wall closest to him. The outside was that direction, he thought. This place had him all turned around. The hollow sound boomed in the tight space. If he could get the attention of the attendant, he would come to help. He had to. Please God, let him hear. Let anyone hear. A grownup would know how to open the doors. “Please, help me!”

  Fighting the terror, he hastily checked the wall around the metal doors for a switch. Trying not to think about what Norman was doing to Amy in the next room. There had to be something here, because the attendant would need to move around inside when the ride wasn’t in operation. Maintenance, stuff like that. He wished there was more light; he could barely see the wall. Bobby ran his hands over the flimsy painted plywood, feeling for anything that felt like a button or toggle. Nothing.

  The track.

  Of course. There had to be something there for the train to trip when it was approaching the doors, just like the switches on real train tracks that turned on the crossing guards. He dropped to his hands and knees next to the rail and began to crawl, looking for something, even though he wasn’t sure what. With a little luck he’d recognize it when he saw it. He wanted to run his hands along the rail itself but a small voice in his head told him it might be electrified, the way subways were. Everyone knew touching those tracks could kill you, and if he was dead he wouldn’t be much good for anything. Norman would win.

  From beyond the doors Amy screamed, her voice raw with naked terror. The sound tore at his soul. But at least it meant she was still alive. Without thinking, Bobby sprang to his feet and bolted toward that end of the room, faster now because some of the pain in his nuts and lower back was easing. This time, instead of hitting the doors, he rammed the plywood next to them, where it had felt so flimsy when he was searching it for a switch. The wood bowed under the blow, and with a pop as loud as a gunshot the plywood sheet cracked. Fresh pain exploded in his upper arm, but he ignored it. The sound of the breaking board was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.

  Amy screamed again. This time it was cut short.

  Bobby sprinted to the far end of the room, spun, and then raced toward the section of wall he’d cracked. Please God, just let me do something athletic just this once. At the last minute he thrust his shoulder forward and tucked, the way blockers did in the rare football games he’d seen. He hit the wall so hard his shoulder went instantly numb, but with a thunderous CRACK! the thin plywood split like the Red Sea before Moses. He crashed through the wall—just call me the Hulk, he would think later that night, before the pill his Mom gave him sent him off to the land of the sandman—and hit the floor in the next room, rolling as he did so in order to spring to his feet.

  This room was much larger than the one he’d come from, and the wooden facades created the Paris skyline. At the other end, where there was another set of closed doors, a ten-foot Eiffel Tower dominated the room, reaching almost to the ceiling. Norman crouched defensively at the base of the monument in front of Amy, leering at him. The girl lay splayed on her back, unmoving, her eyes closed. Her shirt had pulled free of her jeans and her flat belly was partially exposed. The sight of her helplessness ignited something in Bobby, and with a bellow of inchoate fury he launched himself across the room, leaping the track to get at the hobo.

  With a roar of his own, Norman rushed forward and caught him in midair then twisted, using his motion to hurl Bobby over Amy and into the Eiffel Tower, a jerry-rigged conglomeration of steel pipes, chicken wire, and scrap lumber that had been painted silver. With a series of splintering cracks and pops, the tower tore loose from its base and toppled onto its side in a shower of sparks and shattered bulbs. The spire smashed into the wall of the room and snapped off, and the tower body hit the floor with a crash that shook the whole ride. Bobby was draped over the skeletal framework like a horse blanket, and the impact sent fresh thunderclaps of pain roaring through him.

  Norman was on him in an instant, his flyblown horror of a face twisted into a mocking mask of triumph. The rough hands seized Bobby by the shoulders and yanked him off the remains of the tower. His foot caught in the tangle of wires and pipes and wood, and with a roar of anger the hobo jerked him free. Bobby cried out as something in his ankle separated for an instant. Then he was sailing through the air again, slamming into the plywood wall—this one thicker and much more solid than the one he’d just run through—where the tower had hit it and landing in a heap in the trash that now littered the floor. The world went gray and grainy around him.

  “Don’t be so anxious, kid,” Norman sneered. “You’ll get your turn.”

  He turned back to Amy.

  Bobby struggled to stay conscious. Everything wanted to swim in and out of focus, and it felt like he was laying on the deck of a boat in the middle of the river, where the chop was worst. Amy. He knew he needed to get up and help her before Norman did something even more terrible to her, but he couldn’t get his arms and legs to do what he wanted. It was like something had rewired the connections between his brain and limbs. Slowly, he turned his head to look across the room.

  Norman straddled Amy. He had hitched her shirt the rest of the way up to her chin, and now ran his hands over her exposed flesh, gaping down at her with raw lust in his eyes. His mouth hung open, the moist tongue running back and forth over his suppurating lips. She was starting to wake up, her eyes opening slowly. Bobby fought the waves of dizziness that crashed into him and rolled onto his stomach, trying not to think about the black
blistered thing in Norman’s pants and what he wanted to do to Amy with it. His back was sheer agony, but everything seemed to be working, albeit like he was ninety instead of twelve. He got his hands under him and pushed himself onto his knees.

  Coming for you, Norman.

  Using the plywood wall for leverage, he climbed to his feet. Pressure on his ankle sent white-hot flashes of agony through the joint. He took one shaky step toward Amy and Norman, testing, then another. It hurt like heck, but it held him. Glass crunched under his sneakers but the hobo didn’t seem to notice the sound. He was busy tugging at Amy’s jeans. He had them unbuttoned and unzipped and was trying to slide them down her hips. Bobby bit back the fury that threatened to consume him and focused on staying quiet. If Norman thought he was unconscious or too injured to get up, that was a good thing.

  He stepped on something that rolled under his foot and he almost lost his balance and fell. If that happened, he didn’t know if he’d be able to get up. His back groaned and his injured ankle wobbled precariously for what seemed like a lifetime before deciding it was going to hold him. Holding his arms out like a tightrope walker, Bobby found his balance and looked down before taking another step and screwing up everything. The spire from the Eiffel Tower lay on the floor at his feet, a two-foot section of thick dowel painted silver and wrapped in white Christmas lights. The end of the dowel had been honed to a point like the world’s largest pencil.