by Jeremy Bates
Noah thought of his grandparents’ big old place in upstate New York—if they died and his lazy Uncle Phil moved in.
Steve said, “Don’t see a phone anywhere.”
“Me neither,” Noah said.
“Hello?” Steve called.
No one replied.
“Hello?” Noah said. “We’ve had an accident! We need to use your phone to call the police.”
Silence.
“Fuck it,” Steve said. He started down the hallway.
Noah followed close behind him.
Although the hardwood floor was covered with a turkey-colored rug-runner, their footfalls nevertheless caused the boards beneath to groan and squawk. It was stealthy, ominous—the sound a thief made.
The door at the end of the hall gave to the kitchen. It was the most unkempt room yet with gunk-hardened dishes piled in the sink, opened cans of tuna fish and baked beans and other preserved food left on the counters, and dried spills on the linoleum floor tiles. On a small drop-leaf table sat close to twenty empty brown bottles of Bud Light.
Noah wrinkled his nose against the stench of stale beer and cigarettes, and beneath that something sweet and greasy. “This place is a dump,” he said. “Maybe whoever lives here doesn’t have a phone after all?”
“Living way out here, isolated?” Steve shook his head. “They have to have one.” He crossed the kitchen to a narrow butler’s stairwell that led upstairs.
“Forget it,” Noah said quietly. “If there’s some drunk up there—”
“If there is, he’s passed out.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Then why hasn’t he answered us?”
“You think there’s going to be a phone in the bedroom?”
“Maybe there’s a study, or a library.”
“Let’s just go. We could have been at the hospital by now.”
Steve placed a foot on the first tread. “You coming or not?”
“I think I’ll keep looking down here. Yell if someone stabs you.”
“Thanks.”
Steve disappeared up the steps. Noah returned to the living room. He searched beneath the scattered newspapers, behind pillows, under furniture, but came up empty handed. He went to the dining room next. He was opening the doors to a large cabinet—more out of curiosity as to what it held than any expectation of finding a phone—when he sensed movement behind him. He turned just as a kid whacked a hockey stick across his back. Noah cried out in surprise and pain. The kid swung the stick again. Noah absorbed the blow with his left side, then grabbed the stick’s shaft. The kid was half his size. A few good shakes caused him to release his grip and tumble to his ass.
Noah cocked the Titan hockey stick like a baseball bat but didn’t swing it. “It’s okay!” he said. “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”
The kid glared at him from behind a piece of oval cardboard with slots cut out for eyeholes and a dozen stitches drawn on it in black felt marker. The flimsy Jason Voorhees goaltender mask was strapped to his head with pieces of shoelace.
Steve appeared a moment later and stared at the kid. “Jesus!”
“He came from nowhere,” Noah said. “Started whacking me with this fucking hockey stick.”
“Who are you?” Steve asked the kid.
“I live here,” the boy replied in a high, petulant voice. He couldn’t have been any older than nine or ten. “Who’re you?”
“Why didn’t you answer the door?”
“I ain’t gotta. This is my house.”
“Why’d you attack me?” Noah asked.
“You broke in!”
“The door was unlocked.”
“So what. It’s my house. You can’t just come in.”
“We didn’t mean to scare you,” Steve said, “but we’ve had an accident, a car accident. We need to use your phone to call the police.”
“Don’t got no phone,” the boy said smugly.
“You don’t have one?” Steve said suspiciously.
“Nope.”
“Where are your parents?”
“Pa’s coming back right now, and you’re gonna be in deep shit.”
Steve glanced at Noah, who shrugged.
“Keep an eye on him,” Steve said. “I’ll keep looking upstairs.”
“Get outta my house!” The kid leapt at Steve, grabbing his red pullover and tugging, as if trying to tear it.
Noah tossed aside the hockey stick and wrapped the boy in a bear hug, pinning his arms to his side and lifting him free. “I got him!” he grunted. “But hurry up, I can’t hold him forever.”
Steve dashed back up the stairs.
The kid kicked and squirmed and shook his head so violently his mask flew off.
“Stop it, you little shit!” Noah said. “What’s your problem? We’ll be out of here in a minute.”
“Get out now!”
“Give it a rest.”
Sharp teeth sunk into Noah’s right hand, in the fleshy valley between thumb and index finger. He cried out and released the kid, who quickly seized the hockey stick and swung it. Noah absorbed the blow again with his left side and grabbed the blade end of the stick with his good hand. They tugged the stick back and forth before Noah lost his grip and let go.
The kid, off-balance, stumbled backward and collided with an old cast iron radiator that was leaning against the wall, the plumbing disconnecting from the floor pipes. He fell to his back. The radiator rocked precariously forward.
Noah shouted, “Watch out!”
The boy’s angry eyes bulged and he raised his arms in a futile effort moments before the radiator toppled over and crushed his skull. The sound was brittle and wet at the same time, like bones snapping underwater. Then thick crimson blood seeped out from beneath the radiator’s finned columns in a rapidly spreading pool.
Steve was just exiting the kid’s barebones bedroom, about to move on to the next room along the hallway, when Noah began shouting.
Swearing in frustration—how hard was it to restrain a ten year old?—he returned downstairs to the dining room.
He froze in shock at the scene awaiting him.
Noah stood in front of a cast iron radiator, which lay on its side. The kid’s pelvis and legs stuck out from beneath it, making Steve think of a bug that had been squashed beneath a fly swatter: plump middle part flattened to a gooey pulp, legs spreading out from the remains all akimbo. Noah turned his head toward Steve, slowly, almost as if he were in a trance. His eyes were dark and unfocused. He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything.
Steve rushed to the radiator and hooked his hands beneath it.
“Help me!” he said.
“He’s dead,” Noah rasped softly.
“Help me!”
“I heard him die. I heard him.”
With a loud bellow Steve lifted the radiator. The thing must have weighed a good two hundred pounds. It strained his shoulders and back. He got it to knee level and feared he was going to drop it back on the boy when Noah moved next to him and helped lift.
They got it upright. Steve steadied it with his hands until it stopped rocking on its scrolled feet. Then he looked down at the boy—or what remained of the boy.
He swallowed back a jet of vile. He thought he’d seen it all in gross anatomy, but this took the cake. The kid’s jaw and mouth were strangely undamaged, but his forehead was split open like a broken eggshell, revealing a flattened mess of loose blood, brain tissue, and cerebrospinal fluid. The left eyeball lay in a lumpy red bed a few inches from where it should have been. Tuffs of dark hair protruded from flaps of skin that were no longer attached to the skull.
Steve turned away without checking for signs of life. Noah had been right.
The kid was about as dead as you could get.
CHAPTER 6
“No tears please, it’s a waste of good suffering.”
Hellraiser (1987)
Mandy stared at the glowing fireball that had once been the BMW, trying to think of anything ex
cept Jeff—Jeff lying two feet away from her, silent and unmoving and maybe paralyzed. Seeing him so helpless made her think about her mother on her deathbed, frail, feverish, a breathing tube taped to her nose. This had been eight months after she was diagnosed with inoperable ovarian cancer. Initially doctors gave her one year to live without chemotherapy, five with the treatment. She chose the latter option, but the cancer spread faster than anticipated and metastasized through her body. Each time Mandy visited her at the hospital the prognosis became worse and worse. One week her mother’s doctor said she had six months, the next week he said three. During the final days Mandy, sitting by her mother’s side, broke down and cried hysterically. Her mother, momentarily lucid, asked, “What’s the matter, honey?” and Mandy said, “Don’t leave me.” Her mother took her hands and promised she’d always be with her. She died later that night.
After the funeral Mandy’s world seemed darker, grittier. She became angry at everybody and everything and began hanging out with other angry kids. She dropped out of high school in grade eleven, became a compulsive shoplifter, and was in and out of juvie until she was eighteen. That’s when her parole officer sat her down and painted a grim picture of her future if she didn’t clean up her act. At the same time her father told her she was an adult now and kicked her out of the house. She got a job at Burger King and worked forty-hour weeks just to pay her rent and bills and feed herself. The job sucked, but on the plus side it kept her busy and out of trouble. It was also a wake-up call. Realizing she was going to be working behind a cash register for the rest of her life if she didn’t learn an employable skill, she saved enough money to enroll in a three-month fashion makeup artistry program. Once degreed, she found work with a bridal company where she remained until moving on to the Broadway theater scene. By twenty-two she had become the go-to stylist for a number of top stage performers and had a healthy list of private clients.
One evening in late summer of 1984 she and her roommate Lisa Archer were in the small upstairs area of a Midtown bar when the waitress—a tall brunette with a Russian or Polish accent—brought a bottle of Dom Pérignon to their table and told them it was from the two gentlemen at the bar. Jeff and another young trader, both wearing Miami Vice suits, waved and smiled at them.
“Invite them over,” Lisa whispered.
“Seriously?” Mandy said.
“They’re hot!”
“They’re sleazy!”
“You know how much that champagne costs?”
Mandy pushed out a spare chair with her foot. Jeff and his pal came over. She took an immediate disliking to Jeff. He was too smooth, too confident, too good-looking. But the longer they spoke, the more he grew on her, and she realized he wasn’t putting on airs; he really was the complete package. She ended up going back to his place that night, and soon they were spending all their free time together. Although he’d just been starting out at the investment management firm then, he was already a big deal, attracting the notice of important people. Consequently, he was constantly being invited to fashionable dinners and events. Mandy felt like Cinderella, living the rags to riches dream.
At the same time, however, she was uneasily aware that the clock was going to strike midnight at some point. She was just some messed up kid from Queens, the daughter of an accountant, pretty, successful in her own right, but nobody special. She had no business mingling with the Establishment. She knew Jeff was disappointed she had not become the socialite he wanted, knew he was losing interest in her, but what could she do about that? He had successful, intelligent women of high breeding fawning over him whenever he went out. How could she compete with them? The knowledge that she would inevitably lose him gutted her, but she was too proud to let it show. Instead she became snarky, poking fun at him when she could, as she had done in the car earlier. This wasn’t winning her any points, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to hurt him as much as she could before he hurt her.
Mandy forced herself to look at Jeff now, and she was flooded with guilt at her petty behavior. His face, yellow in the light from the fire and slick with blood, looked like someone had taken a box cutter to it. He would be left disfigured with a half-dozen scars.
Poor Jeff, my baby, she thought. My arrogant, narcissistic, beautiful baby…
She gritted her teeth. If only she had stood her ground, they wouldn’t be in this hellish predicament. Two weeks ago a makeup artist named Cindy had invited Mandy and Jeff to her white-trash-themed Halloween party. Mandy had initially accepted, but when she mentioned it to Jeff, he scoffed, telling her he wouldn’t be seen dead at such a party. A couple days later he sprung the idea for the current trip.
“It’s called Helltown, babe,” he told her while they were getting dressed to go out for dinner with friends. “It’s supposedly one the most haunted spots in all of the country.”
“It’s in Ohio!”
“It’ll be a road trip.”
“A boy’s trip.”
“Austin will bring Cherry.”
“Whoopee.” Mandy had never shared much in common with the Filipina.
“And Steve said he’ll ask that chick he’s seeing.”
“The med student?”
“Whoever. So what do you say? There’s a spooky bridge to check out and a couple haunted cemeteries and other neat stuff.”
“If you’re twelve years old.”
“Sure as hell beats a party mocking the white working class. Don’t you realize how crass that is? Would you go to a party mocking underprivileged blacks or Asians?”
“White trash isn’t an ethnic group, Jeff,” she said, thinking of the teenage deadbeats who’d almost ruined her life. “It’s a description of lazy people who make poor life choices.”
“I think it’d be a poor life choice to attend such a party.”
“It’ll be fun.”
“Helltown will be fun, babe. I’ve found us a great little hotel to stay in.”
“You’ve already booked it, haven’t you?”
“You’ll love it.”
“Forget it.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“It’s a no, Jeff!”
But of course it was a yes. It was always a yes. She would have a better chance giving birth to identical quadruplets than persuading Jeff to do something he didn’t want to do.
Austin was pacing back and forth, chain smoking Marlboros, when Mandy said something. He turned to face her. She was bent close to Jeff, as if examining him.
He tossed away his cigarette and hurried over. “What is it?”
“He moved,” she said.
“He moved?” Austin repeated, filled with sudden hope. “His legs?”
“No, his cheek. It twitched. At least I thought it did. Jeff?”
He didn’t reply.
“Jeff?”
Nothing.
Austin said, “You must have imagined it.”
“I don’t think I did.”
Austin patted Jeff’s cheek. “Hey, buddy? You hear me? You wanna open your eyes for us?”
“Stop that!” Mandy said. “You’re going to wake him up.”
Austin frowned. “So?”
“What if he starts screaming again?”
“So he screams. He’ll stop eventually, and we can find out…”
“Find out what?”
“If he can move his fucking legs!” He patted Jeff’s cheek again, harder. “Jeff? Wake up, buddy. Jeff!”
“Stop it!” Mandy cried.
Austin ignored her and continued hitting Jeff’s cheek. “Wake up, Jeff. Wake up—”
Mandy grabbed his wrist. “Stop it!”
He shoved her backward. She fell on her butt. Tears welled in her eyes. “Fine!” she blurted. “Wake him up! Listen to him scream!”
Austin hadn’t meant to push her so hard. “Mandy, I’m sorry.”
“Jesus, Austin,” Cherry said. She’d been sitting off by herself but joined them now. “Apologize to her.”
“I just did!” he said
as Mandy covered her face with her hands. He looked at Cherry helplessly. “Can you talk to her or something?”
Cherry crouched next to Mandy and offered words of comfort.
“I’m not hurt!” Mandy said. “I just want to leave this place!”
Austin returned his attention to Jeff. He ran his hands through his Mohawk in frustration. God, he couldn’t take this. He really couldn’t. He had to know. He slapped Jeff’s cheek, hard.
“Don’t touch him!” Mandy screamed.
“Just scrape the bottom of his stupid foot!” Cherry said.
Austin frowned. “Huh?”
“If he has feeling below the waist, his toes will curl down. It’s instinctual, like when the doctor checks you reflexes by hitting your knee with a hammer.”
“Bloody right!” Austin exclaimed. “Why didn’t you mention that before?” He tugged off one of Jeff’s reddish-brown dress shoes, then a diamond-patterned sock. He dug his key ring from his pocket, chose the largest of the three attached keys, and scraped the tip along Jeff’s sole.
His toes didn’t curl. They didn’t even flinch.
Austin scraped Jeff’s sole a second time.
Nothing.
“Try again,” Mandy said, staring at him with pleading eyes.
“He can’t feel it,” he said numbly.
“Do it harder.”
“It won’t make a difference.”
“Do it harder!”
“I did it twice!” he shouted. “He can’t feel a fucking thing!”
Austin stumbled away from Jeff’s inert body, his collar damp with sweat despite the cold, the air suddenly greasy, unpleasant to breathe. Through a part in the fog he spotted the road and wished he’d taken the case of beer from Noah’s Jeep before he and Steve had left for the hospital, because if he’d ever needed to get shitfaced, it was right then.