She arrived in forty-five minutes, holding a small scrap of paper with the address and apartment number in front of her like a guide. Willow Green was significantly nicer than her complex (which, to her, looked like a series of large, hastily erected three-story office buildings with cheap siding), with a glimmering fountain in the center courtyard and a small convenience store by the main office. She thought, then, that maybe Quigley House was more high-end than she’d assumed—she certainly hadn’t thought an employee of such a place could afford these amenities. She found his building (3) and buzzed his apartment (212), and a few minutes later, she stood in front of a long-jawed white man with a short beard and two sleeves of fiery tattoos. She didn’t move for a moment, paralyzed, realizing, for the first time, that she was about to enter the home of some random stranger.
“You just gonna stand there?” the man said.
Kendra willed her legs to move, wondering how Shawn would react to her dismembered body on the news.
His apartment was impeccably clean, a bright contrast from the cluttered claustrophobia of Rae’s place. It was roughly the same size—three bedrooms, two baths—but housed only one person, so looked more spacious, less worn. On his kitchen table—round, wooden, polished—sat neat stacks of bills, each marked with a Post-it: to pay, paid, to file. In the living room was a large, sleek entertainment center and three CD towers—Metallica, Sepultura, Skid Row, Mötley Crüe—surrounded by three enormous bean bags and a leather recliner.
Cory grabbed an open beer from the table, asked Kendra if she wanted anything. He flopped himself down on the recliner, raised the footrest up. “Lazy day for me,” he said, motioning her toward one of the bean bags.
She sat on the black one, the farthest away from him. Her ass sank nearly to the floor.
“Not a predator,” he said. “Don’t have to sit so far.”
She didn’t say anything, just moved uncomfortably in the bag.
“Well, have it your way,” he said, and took a long swig. “As you can see, I’m a bit informal about these things. I hope that doesn’t freak you out. That’s just the way we are at Quigley. We don’t do things the normal way, ’cause none of us are fuckin’ normal.” He paused, looked at her, squinted. “So why don’t you tell me. What exactly do you know about our little house of horrors?”
Her mouth went dry. Shawn had told her so much back in D.C., but she’d been so preoccupied with leaving, with leaving him, that none of it had actually registered. The only thing she knew was that it was a big house in the country where people went to compete for a cash prize. She squeezed the edge of the bean bag, made a nipple. The air conditioner kicked on, hummed. “I don’t know,” she said.
“You don’t know?” Cory said.
“I should maybe go . . .”
“How did you know to contact me if you didn’t know?”
“My friend, I just moved, and I was thinking of work and . . .”
“So your friend knows about us,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, looking at her fingers, thinking of Shawn’s excitement after she’d told him she’d call. “I know a little.”
“Well, we’re not for everyone,” Cory said, leaning back. “You can think of us as this big, fucked-up family, you know?”
Kendra wondered, then, what her aunt Rae would think if she knew where she was. Rae—perennially bloated, flatulent, and ornery—had, over the weeks, experienced these sudden, unexpected spells of exasperation. Though she wasn’t as difficult as Kendra had thought she’d be, Kendra still caught her looking at her from time to time, her brow furrowed, lips pinched.
Kendra leaned back, imagined the look on her aunt’s face if she could see her now, alone with a man twice her age, a man who, she thought, looked like he regularly used heroin and played in some bad alternative rock band when he wasn’t operating the Tilt-A-Whirl. She settled into her bean bag, said, “Can you tell me a bit more about the house?”
He smiled at her, exposing a row of surprisingly straight teeth. “Owner’s name is John,” he said, “but you must’ve known that. Everyone knows that.”
She nodded. “People have actually gotten hurt there?” Kendra said.
“Nobody hurts anyone.”
“But they can actually touch people in there, right?”
“It’s a big game. That’s all. It’s fun. And if you win? You make money. What could be better?”
The whole point of the “big game,” he said, was to collect as many red envelopes as possible in the hopes that if you made it to Cell Six—the final cell—you’d have found the envelope whose contents matched those of Martha Quigley’s.
“Martha Quigley?” Kendra said.
“Some batshit broad we made up,” he said.
Martha Quigley, he said, was this witchy, crazy fuck of a woman who, at night, had prowled around the neighboring towns in black, sneaking through windows, kidnapping children, chaining them up in her basement. Every day she’d cut off a child’s body part—sometimes small like the tip of a finger, other times big like a foot. She’d bandage the child up as best she could, and then keep cutting until he or she died. In the backyard, the cops found the remains of fifty-five children, and in the master bedroom all the severed limbs hanging on the walls. Next to the limbs were dates of extraction, written in black marker, and next to the dates were Polaroids of each appendage’s owner.
“Gross,” Kendra said.
“It’s just a story,” Cory said. “It’s not real.”
“But people think it is?”
He shrugged. “People believe what they want.”
“And what about the game?” she said, leaning forward.
“Simple, really,” he said.
In Cell Six, contestants met the ghost of Martha Quigley, who handed them two red envelopes, one containing a picture of a child, one containing a picture of an appendage. If the contestants got to Cell Six without calling the safe word, and held envelopes that matched hers exactly, they won $60,000. They also got a T-shirt.
“It’s simple?” Kendra said.
“The game is. The rules are. But getting through? That’s different.”
Most people didn’t make it to Cell Six, he said. Most called out the safe word—reprieve—after the first cell. It was that intense.
Only one group had ever made it through and won the money, he said, a group who called themselves the Ferocious Four. They were UCLA students—two Asian men, two Asian women—and they were a shock because they looked so regular: skinny, approachable, smiley, whatever. They definitely didn’t look like the guys who usually competed. But they did it, and said they made it through because they worked as a team the whole time. They were a unit. They didn’t waver.
“Now, people say shit—all media hype,” Cory said. “They call them plants, say they’re acquaintances of John Forrester, you know, typical bull, but I was there, and I saw it: they did it fair and square. People talk ’cause they have nothing better to do. And if you work for us, you gotta get used to that.”
“What do they say?”
“Oh, you know, the usual. Actors block the envelopes. There aren’t as many envelopes as the screens suggest. The clock skips numbers. Any sort of conspiracy to downgrade us. But I’ve been there a long time. We’re legit. John’s legit. We deserve the attention we’ve gotten.”
Cory finished his beer, climbed out of his chair, went to his fridge, grabbed another one. “Sure you don’t want anything?” he called out. “Water? Kool-Aid? I got some chocolate milk too.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
He went back to his chair, set his beer down on the table. “Some of those haters are my neighbors here, ya know? I think there’s even a petition to kick me out of this complex. But I pay my rent. I’m no nuisance.” He picked up his beer, chugged, wiped his lips. “Here,” he said, reaching into his back pocket. “I’ll show you the house.” He pulled out a wrinkled picture, handed it to Kendra. She looked. Against a gray sky filled with cloudy menace s
tood a three-story white-brick mansion. Gnarled trees paraded in twos and threes across a long, winding driveway, partially obscuring a flat, weedy yard; yellowing curtains bowed each yawning window, revealing an interior of ritual dark; the white brick looked unsteady and unbalanced, tilting the structure slightly to the right. At the top of the house, jutting skyward, was an open-air belfry, where, according to legend, they’d eventually found Martha Quigley dangling from a noose, so emaciated that the wind banged her body against the bell over and over and over.
“Creepy, huh,” Cory said. “You can keep that pic if you want. I have plenty of others.”
“You keep a picture of it in your pocket?”
“No,” he said, laughing. “I knew you were coming, though.”
They sat for a while. Kendra felt chilled. She tried sinking further into the bean bag. “I’m sixteen,” she said.
“You said,” Cory said. “I mean, I’m not looking for actors, you know that, right? We’re all stocked up there, have a list a mile long. People wait in lines to try out for us, you know that? But I do got a parking-lot position.”
“Parking lot?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You know. Attendant?”
“Like, I take money?”
“No. We don’t charge for parking. You’d just be directing.”
“Like, standing outside?”
He shrugged. “Well, that’s where parking lots are.” He drank, finished his beer. “Thought I was all staffed up there, too, but then one girl bowed out a couple days ago. Guess her parents didn’t like the hours. But they aren’t bad for a high school kid. Thursday, Friday, Saturday night. Full week during Halloween. We close in November, open again in March, though spring is different, more relaxed. I was gonna call up a few girls I knew, but then you called, and I thought what the hell. Don’t get cold calls for these things that often, you know?” He looked at her, his eyes softer now, tempered by alcohol. “It’s a pretty cush gig. Only minimum wage, but you just point, and when you’re not pointing, you get to hang out in the shed and eat doughnuts. The girls out there are great too. Christy and Sarah. This is their second year. You’ll like them.”
“So I’d just stand and point?”
“You’d be in costume too. It’s all fun, you know?”
“Okay,” she said, wondering if Shawn would be disappointed by this limited-capacity job.
“Okay? Meaning you wanna continue?”
“Continue?”
“Yeah,” he said, “you’d have to talk to John a bit. Nothing huge. He just likes to meet all his new employees.” He squinted. “You said you didn’t have a car?”
“I have a way to get there,” she said.
“Well, okay,” he said. “So is that a yes? You wanna continue?”
She scheduled a “talk” with John Forrester through Cory during the second week of July. She didn’t tell her mother or her aunt—she knew they’d disapprove—but she needed a ride, so one day she revealed everything to her cousin in a long, excited monologue.
“Hey now,” Bryan said. “Slow down.”
They were in her room, the door shut. Though it was still summer and Bryan wouldn’t move into the dorms until the end of August, she’d been hesitant to make the room her own, but he’d assured her, a few weeks after her move, after he’d put his stuff in the garage, that he didn’t mind how she decorated. It’s your place, he’d said. Put up your death posters. It’s cool. And so, little by little, she’d unpacked her stuff, plastering the walls with the weird, macabre blacklight posters she’d bought at the Crazy Arts store in Adams Morgan back home. Her favorite, the one that she put directly above the desk, showed the Grim Reaper with his scythe standing alone on top of a big hill, the wind billowing his cloak. Below him, instead of the usual screaming, begging, tortured masses, was the lone image of a young Black girl, chewing a fingernail suggestively, looking away from him at a house made of bones, the top of which contained a blood-drenched flag that said, in small print, unnecessary.
“It sounds crazy, I know,” Kendra said.
“So you went over to that guy’s apartment?”
“He’s a decent guy,” she said, scratching her leg. “It’s not like that.”
“He’s a dude. It’s always like that.”
“I just need a ride,” she said.
“And what then? What about when you get the job? You’ll be needing a ride all the time. You can’t hide this stuff from my mom. She’ll find out. And your mom too.”
“I’ll figure that out later.”
She hadn’t thought about how she would broach the topic with her mother and her aunt. Neither of them had ever said anything about the Quigley House, though they were certain to disapprove: if she did get the job, she’d have to sneak, at least for a little bit. It might be difficult, especially given Aunt Rae’s overbearing presence. But then: Rae went to bed so early every night—never up past nine p.m.—and during the half hour or so before she slept, she became completely incoherent, like a bad drunk: slurring, sighing, staring. Lynette, who’d gotten the receptionist job at the veterinary clinic, worked long hours and sometimes didn’t get home until after seven p.m., so given this, and that her mother also went to bed early, Kendra thought she could figure something out. Perhaps she could say she’d made a friend at school? They’d like that.
“I don’t like this,” Bryan said. “Gives me a bad feeling.” He paced in front of her bed. “I mean, Quigley House? You know about that place, right? You know how fucked up it is.”
“That’s all media hype,” Kendra said, mimicking Cory.
“What do you know about media hype?”
“People talk shit about things they don’t understand,” she said. “And really, I just need a ride.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe you went over to that dude’s apartment.”
“Please, Bryan. Please.”
“Really living out your goth identity, huh,” Bryan said, shaking his head. “Fucking Quigley House.”
“Yeah,” she said, “that’s it. My goth identity.” She looked at her closet, saw mostly black, vowed to buy a multicolored shirt.
“You’re a real freak, huh,” he said. “Like for real.”
“I just need a ride,” she said.
“Lemme think,” Bryan said. “When do you need to go?”
They drove to the Quigley House that Friday night, late, around nine. Kendra had thought it a very strange time for an interview, but Cory had only shrugged.
“John’s not like normal people,” he said. “But I’m sure you know that.”
It rained hard, in spurts, leaving ponds around the streets. The sky had darkened early, effecting the beginning of some slasher flick where people were stranded, then fake-comforted, and then slaughtered. They turned into the Quigley House’s dirt driveway, and Kendra felt something wet slither in her stomach, a gnawing, greasy dread. The headlights speared the rain; the windshield wipers whipped back and forth. Along the driveway, the tall, barren trees leaned toward them, smothering. They passed a sign that said quigley house parking here. A green arrow pointed right. She thought of standing out there, next to that sign, pointing dumbly.
Bryan said, “I park here?”
“No,” she said, kneading her stomach, “Cory told me to keep going, to park in front of the house. John’s expecting us.”
They continued driving. After about a thousand feet, the trees parted, and the house loomed, pressing aggressively against the dark, an enormous slab of storybook terror. The first-floor windows blazed orange, highlighting a series of knotted, twisty trees in the front yard, and the edges of the house, racing out to an empty field, clawed so far skyward that Kendra wondered how the house was only three floors. One of the upper windows was illuminated, and though it at first looked empty, Kendra swore, just as she looked away, that she saw the silhouette of an old woman walk past. Martha Quigley, she thought.
“Wow,” she said.
Bryan turned off the car, and they
sat for a while, listening to the rain attack the roof.
“Well,” Bryan said.
Kendra sat paralyzed, her breath coming out in small gasps.
A shadow emerged on the porch: a man. He put his hand in the air, left it there, frozen.
“We can go back,” Bryan said.
“No,” Kendra said. She opened her door to the rain.
John greeted them on the porch, ushered them quickly inside. He led them to a mahogany table stacked with papers and file folders. He offered them drinks. They declined.
“Well, okay then,” he said.
He wasn’t what she expected—more subdued, perhaps, straighter teeth, cleaner hair. She’d seen images of him on the library computers, and in them he looked unbalanced, his eyes too small, his face too narrow. But here, in person, he seemed utterly respectable: he dressed dapperly—white shirt, gray-patched coat, slacks, brown-and-gray flat cap—and secreted a warm hospitality she hadn’t yet encountered in Nebraska. He looked like an ordinary man, one who read books and played chess. He pushed a stack of papers to the side, stared at them both silently for a while. They sat. He raised a cup, sipped some tea.
“Kendra Brown,” he said, putting his cup in his saucer. “Great to meet you. And this is?”
“Bryan Douglas,” Bryan said, sitting forward, extending his hand. “I’m her cousin.”
“Well,” John said, giving him a quick once-over, shaking his hand, “we’re all family here, aren’t we?”
From somewhere, Kendra heard a soft ticking; she looked around but found no clock. Directly above them was a chandelier: gaudy and glassy and twinkling. It hung from the ceiling by a cord that threatened to snap. She put her hands on the table, willed her leg to stop bouncing. She thought of Shawn, how happy he’d sound once she told him about this meeting. She wished she had a camera.
“I always start by filling my new employees in on some of the basics,” John said, smiling. “But really, it’s just me being boastful of my little enterprise.”
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