A Place So Wicked Page 4

  In those first few months, he wondered often if maybe what he had said to Richard really was a load of bull. Maybe getting married was the way to go. He recalled a day when he had stopped at the mall to pick up some flowers, it was maybe two months in, and he had stopped at Kay Jewelers, just to look of course, and just because it happened to be right next to the flower shop. There was a ring, a big, fat, shiny diamond ring resting on a lavender pillow behind a glass case. It glowed, as if calling out to him in some magical way, whispering the truth that he needed to hear. He wanted to see it on Jasmine’s finger.

  But he decided he would wait and see how things played out. He knew what it was like, that early lust, that fire that burns brightest right after you meet someone that you just seem to click perfectly with. It played out, all the way to the final quarter, and just as he had suspected, the flame burnt out almost as fast as it was lit.

  He wouldn’t make that mistake again, approaching insanity so casually, daring to think that he may be in love. And if he ever did, it wasn’t going to be someone he met at the bar. He set the microwave down on the kitchen counter and plugged the power cord in just as he heard footfalls moving down the stairs.

  Robbie turned as Richard walked in, still in his pajama pants and a grey t-shirt. He looked at Robbie for just a second with a confused expression before it morphed into understanding. “Takin’ care of some things for me?”

  Robbie smiled. “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Thanks. Means I can take care of some other things I wanted to get done,” Richard said.

  Robbie was about to ask Richard about staying there for a while when Richard offered a smiling nod and turned away. Richard walked over to the doormat and slid his shoes on. He hadn’t been down in the basement since seeing the house for the first time with the real estate guy, but if he recalled correctly, the basement floor had been rather dirty.

  He walked back down the hall, passing the kitchen and catching Robbie’s glance as he walked by. His little brother looked eager or maybe nervous, exactly the way Richard felt about needing to have a talk with his brother at some point that day.

  As he opened the basement door, a wave of pungent odor wafted through the opening. It pushed him back a step. Richard immediately plugged his nose with his arm.

  “What in the heck is that?” Robbie called out from the kitchen.

  “Basement fuckin’ reeks!” Richard shouted. Now he remembered the basement having smelled a little funky during his visit but nothing compared to the vile odor bearing down on him now.

  A memory flashed back to him of a time when his father had taken him and Robbie hunting years ago. They were trekking across the terrain of the Alleghany forest when they stumbled across a half-eaten deer carcass. Their father explained that it was probably killed by a bear and could have been sitting there for days, maybe even weeks. It was the smell of death after it had aged and rotted, having had plenty of time to erode and fester.

  Richard closed the door and took in a deep breath. It was hardly better, a significant cloud having already escaped the confines of the basement, but it was something. After a few seconds, he finally felt like he could breathe again.

  Robbie joined him in the hall. “Did that come from the basement?”

  Richard lifted his head up. “Yeah.”

  “Something must have died down there.”

  Richard nodded. “Was thinking the same thing.”

  “Well, let’s go find it,” Robbie said, grabbing the door handle.

  Richard almost protested, but before he could get a word out, Robbie had pulled the door open. Another wave rushed up, but thankfully, this one was weaker. It stank, but not enough to make him want to vomit like he had a minute ago. The bulk of it must have escaped its confines in the first wave.

  Robbie fanned in front of his face and made a grunting sound as he flipped the light switch and started down the steps. Richard followed. The stairs creaked and groaned, and the thin metal railing that followed along the stairs was rusted and felt weak, like if you were to fall, and you grabbed it, it would simply rip right out of the wall instead of helping you stay upright.

  The bulb was flickering as they neared the bottom of the steps. It hummed and buzzed, the light growing bright and then fading to near darkness before finding a sudden strength to light again. Robbie was the first down and walked straight over to the light. He grabbed hold of it and twisted the bulb to make sure it was screwed in all the way. It was. He rattled it and didn’t hear any clatter, a sure sign, if present, that something was wrong with the bulb.

  Robbie hmmmmed to himself. The light seemed to be fine, but he wasn’t exactly an electrician. He looked at the cord that came out from the base of the lighting fixture and trailed along the ceiling. The rubber material around the wire looked like it was straight up falling apart.

  “Might be the cord,” Robbie said as he turned to face Richard.

  Richard was standing in front of a door, just standing there, staring straight ahead.

  “Richard!”

  Richard startled and turned. “Yeah?”

  “I said it may be the cord.” He pointed toward the ceiling. “Looks like it was attacked by a rabid animal.”

  “Oh, okay,” Richard said, sounding almost disinterested.

  “You okay?” Robbie asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I think the smell is coming from here.” Richard reached and twisted the door’s handle. It clanked back and forth but didn’t budge.

  “Locked?” Robbie asked.

  “Looks like it. I think I remember this door being locked when I came to look at the place. The realtor said he would find the key for me, said he wasn’t sure what was behind it. He must have forgotten. I’ll have to give him a call.”

  Robbie fanned in front of his nose again and snickered. “Probably a dead raccoon or ten back there.”

  Robbie finally took a look around the basement itself. The light continued to flicker, shedding rays of disappearing yellow across the walls. The basement looked to be about as large as the attic, which stretched across the entire length of the house. Cobwebs strung from wooden beam to wooden beam, blanketing the surface of the ceiling. The wood that made up the ceiling looked black, like it had been burned at some point but somehow still held the house in place.

  In fact, everything in the basement looked ancient and dead except the locked wooden door. It was a bright crimson from corner to corner, clean and fresh, like someone had been maintaining that door but ignored everything else in the basement.

  Richard was at one of the windows that lined the ceiling along the walls, their glass shaded grey by the elements. He clicked a latch and pushed it open and then moved on to the next one.

  “This should let some air in. Get this stink out,” Richard said as he pushed a third one open.

  There were five windows. Richard continued from one to the next. Robbie walked over to the door, mesmerized by its color. It didn’t make sense, and he knew it wasn’t possible, but as he stepped closer, the red almost seemed to be moving, like the paint was water in a river. The shade appeared to change as well, growing bright, and dimming, just like the lightbulb, which Robbie argued in his own mind was probably what was causing the mind games he was experiencing.

  He reached for it, his fingers just inches away from touching the red. His fingers were going to sink right into the door, he somehow knew this without a doubt, because this wasn’t a door at all, it was a river of crimson red, a river of blood.

  Robbie screamed out and pulled his fingers away. His skin had burned, like he was scorched by a blow torch, but was frozen at the same time, as if he had just stuck his finger into a frozen pond. The door was a door again, and only a door. The red had dulled. Richard rushed to his side and asked if he was okay and what happened. But as Robbie lifted his hand, and looked at his completely unscathed fingers, all he could do was mumble a pitiful, one-word answer.

  “Nothing.”

  6

 
; Toby couldn’t recall having fallen asleep. He remembered going to his bedroom and laying down on the bed, which was the only thing he had moved into his new room, and then…that was it. He must have grossly underestimated his exhaustion. But in the end, that was probably a good thing, though. He needed sleep and, recalling how uneasy he had felt standing at his bedroom window the night before, he was relieved that he managed it.

  He wasn’t easy to scare. He didn’t believe in silly things like ghosts, or demons, or religion. The scariest thing one faced on the average day was the potential of running into a drunk driver or slipping and falling. Heart disease and cancer were the leading causes of death in the United States, not malicious spirits. He once read somewhere that the average person walked right past about fifteen to twenty murderers a year and never had any idea.

  But the night before, when he stood in the window, remembering what he had seen when he had looked up from outside, in the atmosphere of the new house, in the darkness locked between its walls, he questioned that very thing, if ghosts existed. He couldn’t deny it to himself, the thoughts that lingered in the recesses of his mind. Even if it wasn’t a ghost, or a demon, or whatever, it wasn’t a person either, a human. It couldn’t have been. Unless some lady was living there without their knowing, taking shelter in the walls, or the attic, or even the basement. That wasn’t impossible.

  Toby reached the bottom of the stairs, still in his plaid pajama pants and a shirt, and rounded in the direction of the kitchen, his hungry stomach guiding the way. He stopped suddenly. A quiet, distant sound grew louder. He quickly traced it down the hall to the basement. Just as the door came into view, the doorhandle started to shake and then turn.

  His dad and Robbie came out, single file. They were talking about something but stopped when his dad noticed Toby standing there.

  “You all right?”

  Toby realized he had been frozen for that second before the door opened, like time had slowed with the motion of the doorknob.

  “Yeah. Yeah! I’m fine.”

  He remembered he had been heading to the kitchen and turned away from his dad and Robbie’s questioning eyes. He felt them on his back as he walked away. He needed to snap out of it, to stop acting like a weirdo.

  He opened the fridge and searched its bare contents. There was a jar of jelly on the upper rack, so he grabbed it, assuming peanut butter and bread were nearby. When his dad and Robbie passed by the kitchen, he heard his dad mention a door in the basement. He wasn’t sure what that was all about, but the tone behind his dad’s voice was strange in a way he couldn’t fully understand.

  “Toby!”

  Toby rounded just as his dad entered the kitchen.

  “Listen, I’m gonna run into town and pick up a new lightbulb for the basement and stop to see the realtor really quick. Can you do me a favor while I’m gone and mow the lawn?”

  Trevor came walking down the stairs.

  “And your brother can help.”

  Trevor looked up, a dark hue below his eyes. “What?”

  “Your brother is going to mow the lawn while I’m gone, and I’d like you to help him.”

  “I don’t feel so good,” Trevor mumbled.

  “I’m sure you’ll make it,” their dad said.

  “Where’s Mom?” Toby asked.

  “Upstairs in the shower.”

  Their dad and Robbie headed for the door. “Your sister can help, too,” he said as he followed Robbie out the door.

  The car’s engine started, and Toby heard the tires reversing out of the driveway. He returned to his task and completed the sandwich. Trevor had disappeared back up the stairs. The next time he heard steps working their way down, they belonged to his sister.

  She entered the kitchen. “What are we doing?”

  “Mowing the lawn.”

  She nodded and started making a sandwich of her own. They stood there eating, the only sound the light hum of their chewing. Toby washed it all down with a swig of water and then rinsed his plate and put it in the sink.

  “So, what’s the plan?” she asked.

  “Where’s Trevor?”

  “He’s upstairs laying down, said something about feeling sick. We can probably do this without him anyway.”

  Toby thought of how infrequently he and Paisley hung out together, like just the two of them, and smiled. While he had absolutely no issue with hanging around Trevor, it was almost unheard of for her and him to hang out, like just them, without Trevor. Trevor and Paisley were practically glued together at the hip ninety-nine percent of the time.

  Toby smiled. “I’ll mow. You can pick up sticks and stuff, get them out of the way.”

  Paisley agreed, and they headed out the door. Toby wasn’t sure where the lawnmower was but found it quickly, stuffed away around back near the house’s rear entrance. The backyard was pretty big, maybe thirty to forty yards back and thirty or so from the left to the right.

  The size looked daunting and made him want to head back inside. He began to question the previous night’s quality of sleep when the mere sight of such a task left him feeling exhausted, even tired. Toby looked up at the beating down sun and heard crickets or something buzzing off in the distance. He felt for a moment like he was standing out in a desert or a massive field so large in size that he could have no hope of escaping it.

  “He didn’t say what part we had to mow, or how much,” Paisley said conspiratorially. “We could just take care of the front yard and still be able to say we did that much at least.”

  It was a great idea. The heat blazing down from the sun seemed to multiply exponentially when he remembered he hadn’t had the chance to shower yet. The mounting sweat in his hair and all across his body acted like an extra layer of skin, trapping in the heat.

  His stomach felt a bit off as well. It churned and waved like the tilting sea. Maybe it was the pizza they had all eaten. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that Trevor wasn’t feeling well and now his insides were also beginning to feel like they were swimming. But that could just as easily be the heat. It had been decently cool out the night before, a little cloudy, with a cool moisture in the air, but it didn’t look like he was going to be that lucky today. Yesterday’s moisture was today’s humidity.

  He grabbed the lawn mower and dragged it out front behind him. Paisley was already at work when he came around the corner. She was picking up small sticks that had fallen from the big tree in the front yard and was chucking them out into the road, which may not have been the best solution to their problem, but neither of them had brought out a garbage bag.

  He unscrewed the cap and checked for fuel. The black fluid moved and glimmered in the sliver of light snaking in through the tiny circular opening. A car drove by. His sister waited until it passed and was gone before throwing another stick out into the street.

  He revved the machine to life. It immediately started spewing grass from its side. It tugged a little, egging Toby to push it forward. Paisley came over and started leading Toby through the yard, scanning the grass for objects that could be dangerous to the mower’s blades.

  She looked down, and her face cringed. She mumbled something that drowned under the roar of the mower and then wiped her hand off on her jeans. They continued, the mower chopping away the grass ahead of Toby. Paisley glanced at Toby and said something, but he still didn’t catch it over the lawnmower.

  They were halfway through the front lawn when she wiped her hand again. Toby noticed some grass on her pants, only it was up high where Paisley had wiped her hand off. He squinted against the sun trying to look closer but wasn’t succeeding.

  She finally stopped abruptly, forcing Toby to yank the mower back to not ram into her. He reached down and turned it off, bringing the racket to silence.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She was picking at her skin. “I’ve got this shit on my hands.”

  He went around the mower and stood alongside his sister. There was green stuff on the palms of her hands,
on her fingers as well, and on her pants. Up closer, the green on her pants no longer looked like grass at all.

  “Let me see.” He grabbed her hand and turned her palm face-up toward him.

  He scraped his fingernail along her skin. She yanked her hand away.

  “Watch it!”

  “Quit being a baby,” he said. “I’m just trying to see what it is.”

  He looked down at his own finger now. Some of what had been on her hand had come off on his fingernail. He picked at it with his other hand.

  “What in the hell?” he mumbled.

  “It looks like paint or something,” she said.

  He knelt and plucked a blade of grass from the lawn. Holding it, up, he looked closely at it. It looked exactly like a normal blade of grass. Until he scratched at it with his finger. The green came right off. Underneath was a light, faded brown color, almost tan.

  The grass looked like it was dead. But that couldn’t be. Why would it be dead? He knelt again, crouching to his knees. He started pushing the grass to the side like he was combing through someone’s hair for lice. As he did so, green started coming off, coating his hand in a thin layer of what had to be paint.

  He yanked an entire tuft of grass from the dirt. At the base of all the blades were the tiniest signs of brown. He knew that if he were to scrape at them, more brown would be uncovered. The dirt below caught his attention. It looked…black. He scooped up a small pile and let it tumble out between his fingers.

  What in the hell?

  Paisley crouched beside him. He scooped up another small pile of dirt. It was black, all except where little frays of brown grass mixed in with it, the brown so old and faded it almost looked more white than brown. It looked like he imagined dirt would look if it were set on fire and allowed to burn out. But why would someone burn the dirt in the yard? And it didn’t feel anything like ash. Ash had a smooth texture to it, like ground chalk. This, well, this was just dirt, only black instead of brown.